the accuracy of the intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before the war last year; it will be chaired by Lord Butler of Brockwell, the former Cabinet Secretary; the...

reason E very so often there is an event which confuses the usual prejudices of political folk. One such event was the rise of the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, who combined...

Q ne of the perks of being a director of a hotel is visiting and eating at the competition. The idea is to taste, look and learn. On this mission, and on the instructions of our...

BRUCE ANDERSON I am not an expert on the sleeping habits of adolescents. But I have consulted a number of authorities, viz parents. Their conclusions were unanimous. Cherie...

to seek shelter from the bitter February cold. It concerns negotiations between Sir Peter Tapsell, the 74-year-old Conservative member for Louth and Homcastle, and his...

Never in the field of human conflict has so much money been wasted by so many on so little, says Max Hastings N ow that Mr Geoff Hoon has put his Hutton embarrassments behind...

I asked Veronica what the difference was between a pikey and a chav. 'A pikey is like a pram-face, really rubbish, eats economy burgers and oven chips and watches telly all day....

Simon Heifer says that Lord Hutton does not understand the twisters and fixers who now run this country 1 f we have managed to carry this far into the 21st century an idea of...

Rachel Johnson names the people who never turn up to parties (and those who always do) I s it just me, or has there been a perceptible rise in social autism recently? Not just...

How would the ancient Athenians have handled the Hutton inquiry? They would not have needed one, Real democracies get to the nub with indecent haste. In the first place, the...

Jonathan Aitken reveals that he is seeking selection for his old seat, South Thanet NI oved. Amazed. Humbled. These were my emotions when earlier this week I was handed a copy...

Andrew Gimson talks to Lady Trumpington about the pleasures of passive smoking L ady Trumpington is on the warpath, At the age of 81, the author of the tremendous dictum 'I'd...

Rod Liddle says that children in care are out of control and social workers can do nothing about it W hen they speak, it is with the lilting cadences of Jamaican street slang....

A weekly survey of world restrictions on freedom and free trade The great food terror is upon us again. On Friday, 23 January the EU Commission banned all imports of chickens...

PAUL JOHNSON B eneath the upper crust of AngloSaxon society lies the club system. It is not as important as its members think, or as sinister as excitable but ignorant...

FRANK JOHNSON DA r Charles Moore, the former Daily Telegraph editor, denouncing the BBC in that paper last week in the light of the Hutton report, observed: 'It seems to me...

From Barbara Arnie! Black Sir: So much tripe about my husband and myself has been written lately that it seems selective to reply to Peter Oborne's column alone. But my...

From Judith Bell Sir: Mr Blair has graciously accepted apologies from the BBC for an erroneous report made by one of its journalists. Perhaps Mr Blair would now apologise to...

Sir: In his article 'Straight and narrow' (31 January) Leo McKinstry listed some outlandish examples of projects undertaken by the sexual discrimination industry. Perhaps I...

From Richard Dean Sir: Philip Guston's retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy certainly deserves all the nice things your critic says about it (Arts, 24 January), but he...

From Andrew Walters Sir: Freddie Sayers has missed two key differences between the UK and the US when it comes to expecting undergraduates to pay their own way through higher...

From Crawford Macdonald Sir: I won't be availing myself of Fiona Millar's invitation to send my children to join a war zone where a 'tough and inspiring head [is] determined to...

From Mick James Sir: Dot Wordsworth recently referred to *shreddies' as a slang term for underpants. When I joined the RAF in 1959, the term was already in common usage. It...

From Barry Cawdron Sir: Tom Livingstone inquires about the meaning of `hemiocentenary' (Letters, 31 January). My New English Dictionmy of March 1932 defines `Itemi' as a Greek...

better editor than chief executive STEPHEN GLOVER A few weeks ago BBC television news announced that the Barclay brothers were the new owners of the Daily Telegraph. It has...

Philip Ziegler DUEL IN THE SNOWS: THE TRUE STORY OF THE YOUNGHUSBAND MISSION TO LHASA by Charles Allen John Murray, £20, pp. 350, ISBN 0719554276 A ny author who subtitles his...

D. J. Taylor THE LAST CROSSING by Guy Vanderhaeghe Little, Brown, £14.99, pp. 470, ISBN 0316726176 W hatever else may be said of Guy Vanderhaeghe, author of The English Boy, he...

Ian Thomson BY THE IONIAN SEA by George Gissing Signal Books, L12.99, pp. 159, ISBN 1902669673, Tel: 01865 724 856 1 n the prosperous north of Italy, southerners are reckoned a...

Antonia Fraser BROTHER AND SISTER by Joanna Trollope Bloomsbury, £16.99, pp. 320, ISBN 0747570434 T he title of Joanna Trollope's new novel — Brother and Sister — arouses...

Rupert Christiansen MEMORIES OF SHOSTAKOVICH: INTERVIEWS WITH THE COMPOSER'S CHILDREN by the Reverend Michael Ardov, translated by Rosanna Kelly and Michael Meylac Short Books,...

Humphrey Stone DUBLINERS by James Joyce, read by T. P. McKenna CSA Word, six CDs, 75 minutes each, £19.99, www. csaword.co.uk L ying stock-still with a bandage over your eyes...

Frank Field STUART HEADLAM'S RADICAL ANGLICANISM by John Richard Orens University of Illinois Press, £22, pp. 184, ISBN 0252028244 T here was a time when the Catholic party of...

Peter J. M. Wayne THE ART OF ARMED ROBBERY by Terry Smith Blake, £16.99, pp. 319, ISBN 1904034993 WL en I fi rst met Terry Smith ten years ago, in the library of Long artin top...

Michael Tanner DEATH-DEVOTED HEART: SEX AND THE SACRED IN WAGNER'S 'TRISTAN AND ISOLDE' by Roger Scruton OUP, .£17.99, pp. 238, ISBN 0195166914 W agner's masterpiece, Tristan,...

Raymond Carr OVER THE EDGE OF THE WORLD: MAGELLAN'S TERRIFYING CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF THE GLOBE by Laurence Bergreen HarperCollins, £25, pp. 456, ISBN 0007118317 1 n September...

Museums should not forget their primary role, says Tiffany Jenkins T he future of thousands of artefacts sitting in the basements of museums across the country is under threat....

Andrew Lambirth Vuillard: From Post-Impressionist to Modern Master Royal Academy, until 18 April T here has never been a major exhibition devoted to the work of Edouard...

Marcus Berkmann I love this time of year: the music industry has gone to sleep, and the rest of us can get going with the piles of CDs we were given for Christmas by obliging...

Giannandrea Poesio Balanchine 100: A celebration Royal Opera House C entenary celebrations are always a good opportunity for taking the pulse of a choreographer's legacy. The...

Ursula Buchan O n 7 March 1804, John Wedgwood, son of Josiah, and a rich banker, met six like-minded friends, including Sir Joseph Banks, at Hatchard's bookshop in Piccadilly....

Lloyd Evans The Country Wife Courtyard Round the Horne Revisited The Venue Slave's Snowshow Hackney Empire A cting. A profession or a disease? The question occurred to me as I...

Mark Steyn Something's Gotta Give 124, selected cinemas C omething's Gotta Give' was written by 0Johnny Mercer for Fred Astaire to sing to Leslie Caron in the film Daddy Long...

Michael Tanner Die Walkiire Barbican Q ncert performances of operas or large arts of them are becoming ever more common, a good thing since staged performances, at any rate in...

Peter Phillips I wonder what relationship you maintain with your old school (or is it Old School?). Was it the kind of place you are still proud to mention decades after you...

James Delingpole N ow that my insomnia has reached such epic proportions that sometimes I can lie there for a whole night without getting any sleep at all, I have become a lot...

Michael Vestey S o,Alastair Campbell's obsession with Andrew Gilligan cost the government two Labour supporters at the top of the BBC: Greg Dyke and the chairman of the...

Taki rro HMS Belfast, Europe's last big-gun armoured warship, anchored off Tooley Street, London. The occasion is a fund-raising dinner and a speech by yours truly for readers...

Jeremy Clarke uring the Queen's speech last _L./Christmas Day the dazzlingly beautiful, inarticulate little girl who was acting as Father Christmas presented me with a parcel...

Petronella Wyatt T he other day some newspaper or another reported the actress Joely Richardson as turning up to promote her role in the TV series Nip /Tuck in a 'vintage'...

Jaspistos In Competition No. 2326 you were invited to write a poem either in free verse mocking rhymed, metrical verse or in conventional verse mocking free verse. It's...

MICHAEL HENDERSON 0 h, where are those snows of yesteryear? The Times ran a series of features last month in which they sought to identify the coming men and women in different...

Q. I was brought up always to write thankyou letters for gifts [sic]. In recent years I have found that I am usually far too busy, especially as I would have to write them on...