I n December 1998, as Peter Mandelson resigned from the Cabinet for the first time, he and Tony Blair spelt out a modern doctrine for responsible political conduct. ‘We came...

Maude’s constituency association. A bit like West Ham’s Inter City Firm, the Horsham Tories have a reputation that precedes them. They don’t mess about, this lot. After...

T he midday sun clearly does have a strange effect on Englishmen. How else to explain George Osborne’s multiple lapses of judgment in going to meet Mr Deripaska, a Russian...

he was genuinely annoyed that George Osborne had relayed Peter Mandelson’s disobliging remarks about Gordon Brown to the Sunday Times . The then Mr Mandelson was Mr...

MONDAY I knew it! It’s always something to do with the Bullingdon. A note arrived this morning from Mr Rothschild, marked Attention Gideon: ‘That’ll teach you for rolling...

Melissa Kite says that the shadow chancellor should have known better than to cross the most brutal spin-doctor in Westminster, or flout the conventions of the super-rich. But...

Last week, The Spectator said that ‘Keynesianism is not the answer’. Here, Tim Congdon says the government’s economic recovery strategy is a sham based on outmoded leftist...

The final full week of nominations for The Spectator ’s Readers’ Representative Award has brought forth nominations for two female MPs on opposite sides of the abortion...

The market needs speculators who are willing to challenge the big battalions, says Patrick Macaskie . Don’t believe the hype: short-sellers were not the villains of this...

Red or white? Venetia Thompson takes refuge from austerity Britain in a night of wine bingo: a fast-growing game that combines the spirit of the Mecca Ballroom with the palate...

Rod Liddle is dismayed by the messy debate on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, its hopeless fudge of secular and religious positions, and the cynical suppression of...

Bryan Forbes lists the prime offenders who continue to fleece taxpayers, consumers, football fans and television owners even as the financial crisis bites. Shame on this Age of...

Sir: In your leading article of 11 October (‘A necessary evil’) you state that ‘Many of those senators who opposed the bail-out initially but changed their minds when it...

Sir: I was dismayed that The Spectator gave a platform to sneer-master general A.A. Gill (India Travel, 18 October) in the guise of a travel piece about Calcutta. Having done a...

Sir: Denis MacShane is too generous. In his Diary (11 October) he surmised that I might be the author of John Major’s ‘Back to Basics’ slogan. But I am afraid I can take...

Sir: Taki is quite incorrect at various points in his sweeping revision of the history of modern guerrilla movements, on which he bases his opinion that ‘insurgencies have a...

Sir: The SNP does seem to get between Charles Moore and his peace of mind (The Spectator’s Notes, 18 October). But would he not agree that the oil revenues would have been of...

Sir: I fear that Nigel Milliner (Letters, 18 October) himself falls into error when correcting Dot Wordsworth’s confusion of Gordon and Kitchener. The Nile expedition, which...

W herever the civilised English gather to discuss the state we’re in, it is almost axiomatic to allow that we’re getting less refined. Discourse, public and private, is (we...

I n times of anxiety, I always turn to Jane Austen’s novels for tranquil distraction. Not that Jane was unfamiliar with financial crises and banking failures. On the contrary:...

Edinburgh is an undemonstrative city, says Bill Jamieson , but its financial community has been mortified by the loss of two banks that have guarded its wealth for centuries N...

Neil Collins K igm Schlunke would like you to buy a flying saucer. No, honestly, he’s ot a video of it on his mobile, showing one buzzing round his lab in Perth, Australia....

Scott Payton explores the market for historic bonds and share certificates — including those issued by failed banks ‘W henever there’s a catastrophe on Wall Street, our...

Philip Hensher G ABRIEL G ARCÍA W RQuEZ by Gerald Martin Bloomsbury, £25, pp. 664, ISBN 9780747594765 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I n July 1965, or so the story...

Christopher Meyer T HE W AR W ITHIN : A S ECRET W HITE H OUSE H ISTORY , 2006-2008 by Bob Woodward Simon & Schuster, £18.99, pp. 512, ISBN 9781847373212 ✆ £15.19 (plus...

Mary Keen SISSINGHURST by Adam Nicolson HarperPress, £20, pp. 342, ISBN 9780007240548 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 O nce, when A d a m Nicolson was asked the...

Caroline Moore L OVE A LL by Elizabeth Jane Howard Macmillan, £16.99, pp. 454, ISBN 9781405041614 ✆ £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 L ove All is a dreadful title —...

Charlotte Moore F LoRENCE N IGHTINGALE by Mark Bostridge Penguin, £25, pp. 646, ISBN 9780670874118 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 N o eminent Victorian has shaped...

Caroline Moorehead JOURNAL by Hélène Berr, translated from the French by David Bellos Quercus, £16.99, pp. 300, ISBN 9781847245748 ✆ £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429...

Surprising literary ventures Gary Dexter T HE C ROWS OF P EARBLOSSOM (1967) by Aldous Huxley T he Crows of Pearblossom is a rare children’s book by Aldous Huxley, written...

Martin Gayford considers whether we are in the final, pre-popping stages of an art bubble J ournalists arriving for the press view of Renaissance Faces at the National Gallery...

Andrew Lambirth on how a chance meeting propelled him into working with Eileen Agar I t’s possible that my life would have been quite different if I hadn’t met the literary...

Laura Gascoigne Jack B. Yeats & Oskar Kokoschka Compton Verney, until 14 December I n 1962 Oskar Kokoschka drew record crowds to his Tate retrospective — belated recognition...

Susan Moore O ne day, perhaps sooner rather than later, it may be possible to draw a telling analogy between the practices of the world financial markets which propelled the...

Roderick Conway Morris Correggio and the Antique National Gallery and other locations in Parma, until 25 January 2009 U nlike the other leading artists of the Italian High...

F OR 2009, Martin Randall Travel have five different Mediterranean Cruises to choose from. Like our small group tours, these are designed for people with intellectual curiosity...

John Spurling Anthony Caro’s Chapel of Light Church of St-Jean-Baptiste, Bourbourg The Barbarians and Clay works Musée des Beaux-Arts, Calais, until 23 February 2009 Paper...

Michael Tanner The Burial at Thebes The Globe Walton double bill Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House W hat is our best chance of experiencing Greek tragedies as works that are...

Tom Sutcliffe T he Irish government has spent € 27 million on a stunning new opera house in Wexford, which is having a flawless and crisis-free baptism in the current opera...

Giannandrea Poesio Mariinsky Ballet Sadler’s Wells Tiago Guedes: Various Materials The Place: Robin Howard Dance Theatre I know I am not alone in thinking that an...

Robin Holloway F urther thoughts on the ever renewed quest for the perfect acoustic for performance and audition of music. Over the past five months I’ve heard one of my...

Lloyd Evans Oedipus Olivier La Clique Hippodrome H ere it is. The National’s autumn blockbuster, Oedipus . Of all the plays of classical antiquity this is the best, the most...

Patrick Carnegy Love’s Labour’s Lost Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon I n Love’s Labour’s Lost Shakespeare uses the most transparent of silly plots as a pretext...

Deborah Ross Ghost Town 12A, Nationwide G host Town stars Ricky Gervais in his first leading Hollywood role, and how much you like this film will probably depend on how much...

Simon Hoggart I don’t want to come over as obsessive, but I was delighted to see the return of Harry Hill’s TV Burp (ITV, Saturday). This show, which has huge ratings,...

Kate Chisholm I t happened just before the eight o’clock pips on Radio Two on Good Morning Sunday . One of those rare moments when something clicks on air and you’re...

Alan Judd W ho’d be a car dealer now? With new sales 20 per cent down and dropping, manufacturers moving to four-day weeks, dealerships closing and the used-car market awash...

Taki New York ‘O ligarchs brace for a downturn,’ screams a New York business headline, a fact that sends me rushing to buy hankies, now selling at a premium at every corner...

Jeremy Clarke T he average age of the residents in our village here on the south Devon coast must be up in the seventies. Every time I answer the door the person standing there...

Aidan Hartley Yemen F or a fortnight our group has spent nights on the desert beaches east of Aden, looking out to sea. We strain to hear voices above the waves. At dawn the...

Melissa Kite W ith alarming synchronicity, the horse lost a shoe and my computer screen blew up within minutes of each other at the start of my week off. So, for a gruelling...

Helen Kirwan-Taylor wonders whether the pessimists have been right all along F ew people feel smug in these turbulent times — apart from those who predicted turbulent times....

Mid-credit crunch it might sound like a counter-intuitive investment, but there are bargains to be had in the yacht market. Just get yourself a decent broker, writes Sophia...

B e careful what you wish for — or, as the old proverb puts it, if God hates you, he grants your deepest wish. All my life I have wanted to be famous and now that I am finally...

It is a curious misapprehension of many otherwise intelligent and well-informed people to think that a writer who is the earliest to be quoted in the dictionary as having used a...

Night Live and presidential debates can tell you, Americans stage a contest like no one else. And that doesn’t just apply to the race for the White House. So if you find...

is the time of year to plant soft fruit bushes. Blackcurrants are a superfood and, if the berries are frozen, a few bushes will provide a whole family’s vitamin C needs...

is considered to be one of the best in southern England and where non-members enjoy playing. Naturally, in addition to paying an annual subscription, there is a cost if one...

best support and silhouette but which, because it belonged originally to my grandmother in the 1950s, has become a disgusting colour (even though it is clean). It has some sort...