I t was once enough for the Conservative party to be seen, in Maurice Saatchi’s phrase, as ‘cruel but competent’. Lord Saatchi was among the first to warn, however, that...

I found myself back at the school I went to three centuries ago — or so it seems. The occasion was a memorial to a favourite teacher. Neil Laing taught English and died young,...

T he Hinduja scandal is the closest the Labour party has to radioactive waste. Though officially buried five years ago, it remains lethal: the Indian billionaires had involved...

coming programmes on ITV1: ‘THIS SUMMER Ant and Dec will give away £1,000,000. Famous faces will face the music (and Simon Cowell). David Beckham will bare his soul to the...

MONDAY I do want to believe there’s more to life than money but it does seem a bit — well — impractical. Mummy is furious . Says if Dave would care to pay our vet’s...

The lecturers’ strike is proof that higher education needs thorough reform, says Boris Johnson . There must be competition all round, universities must raise their game and...

Dean Godson says that the pitiless Conservatives of Kensington and Chelsea are stirring once more and plotting to oust the former foreign secretary I s Kensington and Chelsea,...

Simon Caldwell on how Amnesty can destroy its 45-year-old campaign on behalf of the oppressed by declaring abortion to be a ‘human right’ T here was never any mention of a...

Allister Heath meets Yulia Tymoshenko, superstar of the Orange Revolution, and is impressed by her plans to bring market reform and energy independence to her country T o her...

wife. Of course, if he’d stuck to the latter, no one would now have heard of him: rather like certain British politicians, more notable for their love life than for their...

David Cameron cannot turn Britain into a serene and contented country like Bhutan, says Rod Liddle . We have grown too used to dissatisfaction H as the David Cameron dog sled...

As Bush and Blair plan withdrawal, Stryker McGuire talks to senior British officers on the ground engaged in the long, hard job of training Iraqi soldiers Baghdad T he sun has...

Are we now more ignorant than Bertie Wooster? Orwell, in his essay defending P.G. Wodehouse, noted that when ‘he describes somebody as heaving “the kind of sigh that...

Christopher Caldwell takes issue with the Francophobia of his countrymen and declares the so-called ‘cheese-eating surrender monkeys’ to be Europe’s finest people...

From Ronald Fletcher Sir: David Mayger (Letters, 20 May) seems to be unaware that the history of his country has been written many times, and that the salient fact to emerge is...

From Clive Cowen Sir: Your leading article of 13 May (‘Sorry, you’re no Mrs Thatcher’) hit the spot when you wrote, ‘He [Mr Brown] and Mr Blair have tussled as if the...

From Frank Robinson Sir: David Meikle (Letters, 13 May) is naive in thinking that European countries are clamouring to join the EU because they share its values. It is because...

From Oliver Mason Sir: In ‘The Spectator’s Notes’ (20 May) Charles Moore writes, ‘Merely 30 years ago, films of men kissing would have been banned in most European...

From Michael Grosvenor Myer Sir: Michael Vestey (Arts, 20 May) retails yet again the canard that ‘ Look Back in Anger , attacked by most reviewers, was saved by Kenneth Tynan...

From Suzan Smith Sir: Sir Cliff Richard (‘It seemed to me that Tony was suffering’, 13 May) states that Jesus ‘obviously never got into contraception, because it did not...

From John Kiely Sir: Actually, the Iranian President originally had a quite uncomplicated name: Inejad (Shared opinion, 13 May). But after he had been in public life for a few...

N ews that various Nigerian cleaners, working on Home Office premises dealing with immigration, were themselves illegal immigrants was amusing enough. But people are always...

O n 12 May I sat down at a café on the square, ordered coffee and Perrier, and began to sketch the west front of Strasbourg Cathedral. This was presumptuous: the complexity of...

a g ainst Tesco Ross Clark argues that ‘fair trade’ and health campaigns against big supermarkets are largely spurious, but that the stores should be taken to task for...

Merryn Somerset-Webb There is a popular book for new parents called What to Expect the First Year by Arlene Eisenberg. In the chapter on what to expect during the third month...

Dominic Midgley says that the profit motive rather than altruism is behind the City’s ‘diversity’ drive H erbert Smith, a firm of City solicitors, last month announced...

T he Rosewall affair signifies everything that is wrong with Royal Mail. The two-and-a-half ton Rosewall sculpture by Dame Barbara Hepworth was acquired by the Ministry of Works...

Jonathan Ray goes on a safari tailor-made for softies I was in the middle of planning a trip to the Western Cape wine-lands of South Africa when I ran into my friend and...

Lucy Vickery T he price is jaw-dropping — a whopping £188 for a massage. But once I’ve re-arranged my flustered features to resemble those of one who is perfectly at home...

Sophia Hesselgren I had imagined the vintage clothing industry to be full of eccentric characters — all spectacularly dressed, smoking furiously (perhaps through ivory...

agreed to eat 14 four-course menus and then half the menus all over again. All this on telly as a judge on Great British Menu , a competition in which top chefs compete to cook...

Sam Leith T HE W AR OF THE W ORLD by Niall Ferguson Penguin, £25, pp. 717, ISBN 9780713997088 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Now comes a war and shows that we still...

Carole Angier T HE W ORMS C AN C ARRY M E T O H EAVEN by Alan Warner Cape, £11.99, pp. 389, ISBN 0224051105 ✆ £9.59(plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 A lan Warner’s first...

Andrew Barrow T HE L OST L UGGAGE P ORTER by Andrew Martin Faber, £10.99, pp. 296, ISBN 0571219039 ✆ £8.79 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T his heavy, clanking, finely...

Andrew Taylor T HE P OE S HADOW by Matthew Pearl Harvill Secker, £12.99, pp. 370, ISBN 9780436205459 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 P oe’s life, like his...

Anthony Daniels O N L ATE S TYLE by Edward Said Bloomsbury, £16.99, pp. 176, ISBN 074758365X V £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T he influence of an intellectual is not...

Lucy Hughes-Hallett M OTHER C OUNTRY by Jeremy Harding Faber, £15.99, pp. 189, ISBN 9780571212897 V £2.79 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 H OW TO S URVIVE YOUR MOTHER by...

M. R. D. Foot J UNE 1941: H ITLER AND S TALIN by John Lukacs Yale, £16.99, pp. 169, ISBN 9780300114379 V £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 M OSCOW 1941: A C ITY AND ITS...

Anna Vaux A BIDE WITH M E by Elizabeth Strout Simon & Schuster, £12.99, pp. 294, ISBN 074323930X ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 A s its title indicates, Elizabeth...

James Buchan T HE T RIBES T RIUMPHANT : R ETURN J OURNEY TO THE M IDDLE E AST by Charles Glass HarperCollins, £25, pp. 472, ISBN 0007131623 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429...

Hugh Cecil T HE P ERFECT S UMMER : D ANCING INTO S HADOW IN 1911 by Juliet Nicolson John Murray, £20, pp. 290, ISBN 9780719562426 V £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 A s a...

Graham Stewart T HE B RITISH E MPIRE AND THE S ECOND W ORLD W AR by Ashley Jackson Hambleden/Continuum, £25, pp. 604 ISBN 1852854170 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655...

Jane Ridley V ICTORIA ’ S W ARS : T HE R ISE OF E MPIRE by Saul David Viking, £25, pp. 503, ISBN 9780670911387 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T he Iraq war has...

Hugh Massingberd W ILLIAM K ENT : A RCHITECT , D ESIGNER , O PPORTUNIST by Timothy Mowl Cape, £25, pp. 298, ISBN 0224073508 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 W illiam...

Jonathan Keates S OME T ALK OF A LEXANDER by Frederic Raphael Thames & Hudson, £24.95, pp. 336, ISBN 0500512884 ✆ £19.95 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 P lutarch, in his...

Our needs are really very mild, so please don’t be too critical, if we just crave a little seal, to decorate our winter coat. Don’t show those bloody, mashed up cubs, it...

P. J. Kavanagh S TRANGERLAND : A F AMILY AT W AR by Helena Drysdale Picador, £14.99, pp. 396, ISBN 9780330411691 ✆ £11.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T his book, about...

Lloyd Evans R OY K ERRIDGE ’ S B RITAIN by Roy Kerridge BTM Life Light, P.O. Box 43892, Kilburn, London NW6 5WX, £15 (includes UK postage only), pp. 166, ISBN 0954681622 A s...

Opera Holland Park inspires a loyal following. Henrietta Bredin investigates T his year is Opera Holland Park’s tenth anniversary season, and to my great shame I have never...

Andrew Lambirth Undercover Surrealism Hayward Gallery, until 30 July Max Ernst Helly Nahmad Gallery, 2 Cork Street, W1, until 28 July ‘ icasso, Miró, Masson and the vision...

Russell Chamberlin I n 1990 I published a lengthy article on Sicily — and was astonished by the response from English readers who had connections with the island, in some...

Olivia Glazebrook X-Men: The Last Stand 12A, selected cinemas Friends with Money 15, selected cinemas T he X-Men trilogy has been a superior translation of comic book to big...

Michael Tanner The Makropulos Case ENO Cosi fan tutte Glyndebourne J anacek’s The Makropulos Case remains a bewildering work, as in fact almost all his operas after Jenufa ,...

Robin Holloway I t is hard to embrace Max Reger. For a start, he is surely the physically ugliest of all composers, surpassing even Prokofiev, or Zemlinsky, whose repulsiveness...

Toby Young Jane Eyre Trafalgar Studios The Overwhelming Cottesloe I can’t make up my mind about Shared Experience. Since 1988, this company has been adapting classic works of...

Giannandrea Poesio The Sleeping Beauty Royal Opera House S taging the 1890 classic The Sleeping Beauty in the 21st century is not an easy task. Recent studies, discoveries and...

James Delingpole W hen I was younger and prettier and looked more like a girl, I used to have a prominent gay section on my bookshelves ( The Swimming Pool Library ; A Boy’s...

Michael Vestey L istening to The Archive Hour: Down Your Way Revisited on Radio Four (Saturday) made me wonder why the network got rid of the programme in 1995. It had been...

Taki Cannes I f the truth, space and good taste allowed it, the heading of this column would be ‘My Cannes night of lust with Halle Berry’. Before her agent reaches the...

Jeremy Clarke T he only cinema within a 30-mile radius of my home is an Art cinema in a 400year-old barn. A thatched 400-year-old barn. If the nonsense being shown is the...

Aidan Hartley Nairobi T om Cholmondeley has done it again. The scion of Kenya’s Delameres has shot dead another black African trespasser on his Rift Valley farm. This is his...

Simon Davis toasts the delights of prolonged anticipation S taring from the windows of the 18.22 Paddington to Moreton-inMarsh, it occurs to me that the best things in my life...

Nick Foulkes does his fractions L uxury is no longer just a business; it is a commodity to be parcelled up and sold in whatever way its suppliers deem most effective — there...

Nicholas Coleridge renews his vow to celebrate anniversaries abroad W here would you recommend going for a 10th, 20th, 30th and 40th wedding anniversary holiday? That was the...

programme. This means that on the first and third Wednesday lunchtime of every month children aged 11 and under get to eat a free seven-course menu designed to introduce them to...

Spectator readers. They may be one of the poshest of all wine merchants — two very wealthy writers whose books you have seen piled high in Terminal 4 were tasting for their...

FRANK KEATING H osepipe bans? Standpipes in the streets? Ah, yes, I remember them well. Prepare for a host of anniversary paeans from us old sweats of 30 summers ago....

stately home I was reminded of the apophthegm ‘a fool and his money are soon parted’. Before my visit I thought a trade fair was full of dusty men with brawny arms selling...

who is possessed of a socially unacceptable sneeze? She recently visited us in the country and we took her to our favourite local restaurant, an intimate log-fire kind of place....