T he latest news in the financial crisis is that, after weeks of blamecalling by all parties — generally misdirected, as Dennis Sewell argues in our cover story — a single...

abandoned me on the GMTV sofa for the comforts of a hotel in Manchester and a well-stocked mini-bar. Apparently this particular Labour party conference was like a family having...

T he champagne ban was nonnegotiable: David Cameron did not want any of his aides drinking bubbly at the Conservative party conference. Not that they needed much telling. The...

necessary to save the nation and reach ‘across the aisle’, as they say in Congress, is one of the dirtiest and oldest political tricks, but no less effective for that. It is an...

Sunday Am exhausted already. It’s this earpiece. Every time I get settled into watching a debate or fringe event I hear Gary’s voice shouting orders and I’m running off to some...

Our current financial turmoil is not the fault of greedy bankers, says Dennis Sewell . In fact, the banks were bullied into lowering their lending standards by left-wing...

Nominations for the inaugural Spectator’s Readers’ Representative award are now open. The entries received so far show that there are at least some elected officials who have...

The failure of the $700 billion bail-out has driven her former City-boy chums to despair, says Venetia Thompson . But they must rally soon to keep the market moving I t’s...

GCC single currency T he proposition for a GCC single currency was agreed in 2006 as a means to create a monetary union that would protect and improve the members’ economies....

Millions travel to Medjugorje each year but, says Simon Caldwell , the world-famous pilgrimage site may soon be exposed as a fraud T he Medjugorje story begins early in 1976...

Swearing and shouting are underrated, says Giles Coren . Four-letter words can be immensely satisfying and extraordinarily effective W hen I was ever so small and sweet,...

Rod Liddle analyses the extraordinary list of mostly harmless words and phrases that are now considered inappropriate by one of our leading national newspapers T here are too...

Sir: Will Rowan Williams start his call for ‘fresh scrutiny and regulation in the financial world’ (‘Face it: Marx was partly right about capitalism’, 27 September) by glancing...

stands is that they are exclusively directed against right-wing policies. In the left-liberal milieu that he inhabits, these stands require no moral courage at all. But he never...

Sir: My friend Toby Young listed the magazines and newspapers he has been fired from in the last 22 years (Status anxiety, 27 September). His list is incomplete: I would like to...

Sir: It made me wonder, after reading Charles Moore’s anecdote about a shooting accident where the perpetrator denied shooting one of his party (The Spectator’s Notes, 13...

Sir: I write on behalf of ‘Cheeta’, who went ape on seeing the caption under the photograph on page 37 in the most recent Spectator . The Tarzan shown in the photo is not the...

Sir: Jonathan Mirsky’s review of Alexander Waugh’s book on the family Wittgenstein (Books, 20 September) perhaps reveals more about The Spectator ’s sturdy Europhobia than about...

Sir: ‘On an exercise during misty weather on that fearsome place Bodmin Moor, I was the only one to get my platoon back safely,’ says Paul Johnson (And another thing, 20...

W hy do men want to rule the world? The question is prompted by the British Museum’s exhibition of objects from Hadrian’s day. They have gone to a lot of trouble. Worth it?...

‘W ould you be inter ested,’ said the star tlingly eager girl at the Birmingham conference centre, ‘in recording a message in the Conservative Video Box?’ God, I was pleased...

The US Treasury chief sees his interventionism as a case-by-case response to unprecedented events, says James Doran , but his critics see it as inconsistent, dangerous and...

Neil Collins T his is getting serious — so serious that I’ve done something I may have cause to regret terribly a year or two hence. I have sold my shares in Lloyds TSB. I did...

Bevis Hillier C ARTOONS AND C ORONETS : T HE G ENIUS OF O SBERT L ANCASTER introduced and selected by James Knox Frances Lincoln, £15, pp. 224, ISBN 9780711229334 ✆ £12 (plus...

Honor Clerk A M OST W ANTED M AN by John le Carré Hodder & Stoughton, £18.99, pp. 340, ISBN 9780340977064 ✆ £15.19 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 L ocation, location, location...

Robert Salisbury A P OLITICAL S UICIDE : T HE C ONSERVATIVES ’ V OYAGE INTO THE W ILDERNESS by Norman Fowler Politico’s, £14.99, pp. 238, ISBN 9781842752272 ✆ £11.99 (plus...

Robert Macfarlane C ONNEMARA : T HE L AST P OOL OF D ARKNESS by Tim Robinson Penguin, £20, pp. 359, ISBN 9781844881550 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I n 1972 Tim...

Melissa Kite O NE F IFTH A VENUE by Candace Bushnell Little Brown, £12.99, pp. 469, ISBN 9781408701119 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 O ne of life’s intriguing...

Geordie Greig STARSTRUCK by Cosmo Landesman Macmillan, £14.99, pp. 324, ISBN 9780330446280 I f as a child you found your parents embarrassing then this hiss-andtell memoir will...

Jonathan Sumption W HAT N EXT ? S URVIVING THE T WENTY - FIRST CENTURY by Chris Patten Allen Lane, £25, pp. 459, ISBN 9780713998566 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I t...

Alan Watkins D oWNING S TREET D IARY : W ITH J AMES C ALLAGHAN IN N o .10 by Bernard Donoughue Cape, £30, pp. 562, ISBN 9780224073806 ✆ £24 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 B...

Jonathan Bate G ARDENS : A N E SSAY ON THE H UMAN C ONDITION by Robert Pogue Harrison University of Chicago Press, £12.50, pp. 248, ISBN 9780226317892 W hen I was a student, my...

Colin Amery M LINARIC ON DECORATING by Mirabel Cecil and David Mlinaric Frances Lincoln, £35, pp. 320, ISBN 9780711225411 ✆ £28 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I wish this book...

M. R. D. Foot D eception plays a large part in war, just as feinting plays a large part in sport. The British excel at it, and used it with much success in both the 20th...

A review of another biography of that tiresome poser, Lady Hester Stanhope, sent me back to Kinglake’s Eothen and the account of the visit he paid the Queen of the Desert, who...

Henrietta Bredin on how book illustrations can bring the narrative to life T he illustrations in children’s books play a crucial role in expanding the imaginative horizons of...

Andrew Lambirth Rothko Tate Modern, until 1 February 2009 T he first thing that should be noted is that this exhibition is not the retrospective that its title implies. In...

Deborah Ross How to Lose Friends and Alienate People 15, Nationwide H ow to Lose Friends and Alienate People is based on Toby Young’s best-selling memoir of the same name and,...

Marcus Berkmann A musician friend of mine acquired his first iPod recently, and like small boys who don’t realise that everyone else went through this about five years ago, he...

Michael Tanner La Calisto Royal Opera House Tosca Opera North, Leeds I t’s not often that you find the Royal Opera going as far back as the 17th century, no doubt for the good...

Lloyd Evans six Characters in search of an Author Gielgud Riflemind Trafalgar Studios P irandello, the master of pretentious bombast, is perhaps the most talentfree of all...

Kate Chisholm W hy do some sounds endure to jolt the memory and take us back to a specific moment in time, like Proust’s taste sensations, while others fade away? The...

James Delingpole ‘P eople have a problem with me,’ claims Jamie Oliver, but I’m not one of them. I’ve had my doubts in the past — overuse of phrases like ‘luvly jubbly’, the...

Robin Oakley A n old friend in journalism, well awar e that he was prone to conspiracy theories, especially where his own career was concerned, used to say to me, ‘Just because...

Taki W hen I read that actor Robert Wagner had had a four-year-long affair with Barbara Stanwyck back in 1952, my first reaction was that of envy and more envy. Wagner is 77...

Jeremy Clarke ‘M y life’s over, doctor,’ I said. ‘A young man like you! Nonsense!’ he said, peering at me over his half-moon glasses. He was that wonderful combination: a fat...

Aidan Hartley W ars never get easier. Since Georgia, I have had flashbacks of an elderly woman crying her eyes out after being driven from her village by Russian bombs. When I...

W here do you stand on the most important issue of the day, namely, whether the BBC should have passed over Carol Klein, to be chief presenter of BBC 2’s Gardeners’ World after...

Alex James T he tent had been a big hit over the summer. They called it a tent, but it was big enough for elephants and tightropes: a big top as big as a ballroom and just as...

Susanna Gross W henever I leave my mobile phone anywhere — which I do with alarming regularity — I feel as though I’ve been disconnected from the world. Still, there are times...

trade is that people are always optimistic. If the country is prospering, why, they say, folk will spend loads more on wine. If we are in deep trouble, as today, we will eschew...

James Sherwood discovers a new meaning to the phrase ‘fashion house’ I t is both blessing and curse for luxury goods brands that they largely appeal to cads and parvenus. Would...

I t is a strange experience interviewing the actor who has just played you in the film of your life. Simon Pegg has been cast as yours truly in How to Lose Friends & Alienate...

Rory Sutherland O ne of the most interesting books from the last year has been Revisiting Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (MIT Press, £20) — a reprint of a...

and her equally dear mother in a fashionable restaurant. Both my goddaughter and I were rendered speechless when her mother produced a plastic bottle of water from her handbag...

an employee of my Traveller’s Club, whom I have never met, addresses me, uninvited, by my first name? Am I right to be slightly taken aback? E.B., Bromley, Kent A. I assume you...

am supposed to share a flat at university have given my room away and I have nowhere to live this term. I am going to be able to sofa-surf for a couple of weeks but after that I...

quite pleased about it since I will be getting a pay-off and I want to do some travelling. However, what is making me depressed is the number of friends who ring up and tell me...