'holding office or representing the party' while it investigated complaints that remarks he made during the war against Iraq might have constituted 'behaviour that is...

ony Blair turned 50 this week. The milestone has been celebrated with a special exhibition by the staff of No. 10. In an impressive display of their tal ents, the spin doctors...

Institute of Nanotechnolog, on the radio last week. She assured listeners that 1 was -. quite wrong to imply that big business was behind the technology. Governments, she...

he central proposition behind the government's public-relations campaign since the end of the Iraq war is that Tony Blair has undergone some mid-life personality enhancement. We...

leaked wire-taps revealing that Mo Mowlam has what the wholesome housewives of Middle America call 'a pottymouth'? Or that while secretary of state for Northern Ireland she...

n the early hours of last Thursday, armed police arrived at the Belfast house of Liam Clarke, the Sunday Times's Northern Ireland editor, and his wife, Kathy. They seized four...

Rod Liddle switches on the television and is alarmed to find that broadcasters either ignore or deny what we all know is happening L et us imagine for a moment that you are a...

A weekly survey of world restrictions on freedom and free trade This column does not often find common cause with American farmers, nor with farmers of the developed world in...

lain Duncan Smith tells Mary Wakefield that the Tories' new Fair Deal needs no razzmatazz to win over the public R ight! You've got 40 minutes,' says Nick Wood, lain Duncan...

You know what? There isn't a conspiracy against the middle classes in education. On the contrary, says Rachel Johnson, they've never had it so good I ,. f you read only the...

I was trying the other day to find out who first came up with the term moral equivalence, and so I turned to Twentieth Century Words, edited by John Ayto (Oxford). He doesn't...

The coalition victory should be celebrated, but it was not an unmitigated triumph, says Andrew Gilligan In 1991 we were Liberating Kuwait. In the Falklands we relieved the...

Why do we put up with pathetic trickles when foreigners have power showers? Because we are mean and timid, says Nell Butler I 'm in a Swiss mountain village. I've spent the day...

Two British commandos from the Special Boat Service (motto 'Not by force, but by guile') escaped capture in Iraq by trekking some 100 miles across mountainous terrain, by night,...

Berlin lives in the past, says Andrew Gimson. Welfare is generous, and the nation is going bankrupt Y ou are leaving the civilised sector. These words were pinned. in German and...

The Atlantic alliance is essential to the national interest, says Malcolm Rifkind, but Mr Blair should not give unconditional support to the US liw hy is Tony Blair regularly...

V illages and little towns are rather like people: they either have charm or they don't, and it's not always easy to explain why. When I am staying at my house in the Quantocks,...

From Sir Philip Goodhart Sir: Of course there should be a national referendum before this country is asked to sign a new European constitution. If the present government will...

Front Mr Tim Congdon Sir: Unlike Christopher Patten (Letters, 3 May), I do not regard Britain's future position in Europe as a matter of musichall entertainment. My article...

Front Mrs Elizabeth Morley Sir: 'If there are any weapons of mass destruction,' writes Boris Johnson (The fear, the squalor . . . and the hope', 3 May), 'the good news is that...

Johnson's account of comments made to him by Thomas, his translator in Iraq, to the effect that a country with a tyrant is better than one with no leader at all. Thomas...

From Lieutenant-Colonel D.M.C. Rose Sir: I was horrified to see our Prime Minister kissing the President of Russia. Can you imagine Neville Chamberlain kissing Hitler, or...

From Mr Greg Richey Philip Hensher (Books, 26 April) labours under the rather startling delusion that Margaret Atwood is a novelist of remarkable foresight, offering her...

From Mr Mark Carden Sir: Modern state-sponsored fearfulness does not result just in absurd over-reaction to real problems (Leading article, 3 May), but also in the imposition of...

From Brigadier Peter Macdonald (Rtd Sir: When in 2001 I heard that many of the men living on the streets in Bristol were ex-servicemen (Mary Wakefield's article. 'Lions betrayed...

From Mr Neil Clark Sir: What is it about the Russian position on weapons inspections that a man of Mark Steyn's undoubted intellect fails to understand ('Why I nearly resigned',...

From Mr David C. Taylor, FRCVS Sir: The giraffe mentioned by Paul Johnson (And another thing, 3 May) which walked the 550 miles from Marseilles to Paris in 1826 was actually a...

e shall probably never know what drove someone like Crispin Blunt to carry out a suicide attack on kin Duncan Smith. The young a respectable, middle-class, and pro-European...

I n ten days' time the shareholders in Glaxo SmithKline will have their chance to put the clock forward. They are invited to agree that Jean-Pierre Gamier, who is GSK's chief...

Philip Hensher GEORGE ORWELL by Gordon Bowker Little, Brown, £20, pp. 512, ISBN 0316861154 ORWELL: THE LIFE by D. J. Taylor Chatto, 120, pp. 448, ISBN 0701169192 Q rwell's...

Kate Hubbard THE FINAL CONFESSIONS OF MABEL STARK by Robert Hough Atlantic, £12.99, pp. 430, ISBN 184354152 A photograph at the front of Robert Hough's first novel shows a...

Raymond Carr THE DEGAEV AFFAIR by Richard Pipes Yale, f16.95, pp. 153, ISBN 0300098480 F ew suspected that 'jolly little Pell', Professor of Mathematics at the University of...

P. J. Kavanagh MOUNTAINS OF THE MIND: A HISTORY OF A FASCINATION by Robert Macfarlane Granta, £20, pp, 306, ISBN 1862075611 T his is a seriously good book; with learning worn...

Paul Bew IRISH SECRETS: GERMAN ESPIONAGE IN WARTIME IRELAND, 1939-1945 by Mark M. Hull Irish Academic Press, £39.50. pp. 496, ISBN 0716527561 MI5 AND IRELAND: THE OFFICIAL...

Paul Ferris FREUD AND THE NON-EUROPEAN by Edward W. Said Verso, in association with the Freud Museum, £13, pp. 84, ISBN 1859845002 p olemicists find their weapons where they...

Theo Richmond LANDSCAPES OF MEMORY: A HOLOCAUST GIRLHOOD REMEMBERED by Ruth Kluger Bloomsbury, ,C12.99, pp. 272, ISBN 0747560056 R uth Kluger was six when Hitler marched into...

Caroline Moore SEEK MY FACE by John Updike Hamish Hamilton, £16.99, pp. 276, ISBN 0241141982 F rancis Spufford, in his engaging account of childhood reading, The Child That...

David Caute WAITING FOR THE WILD BEASTS TO VOTE by Ahnriadou Kourouma, translated from the French by Frank Wynne Heinemann, £12.99, pp. 445, ISBN 0434008141 T his witty and...

Andrew Lambirth talks to Nicholas Garland, the political cartoonist, about his work A lthough best known as political cartoonist of the Daily Telegraph, and for his...

Laura Gascoigne Breon OrCasey at 75 Berkeley Square Gallery until 17 May tell you what influences my art. LEvery bloody thing that happens to me and that I see from the time...

Michael Tanner The Magic Flute Opera North Jerry Springer – The Opera National Theatre A fter a long period without any chance of seeing a production of The Magic Flute, in...

Giannandrea Poesio Paul Taylor Dance Company Sadler's Wells T inear narratives and an often disarm ngly uncomplicated movement vocabulary are distinctive features of Paul...

Mark Steyn X-2: X-Men United 124, selected cinemas U nless you're one of those hardcore anoraks still subscribing to The Incredible Hulk in late middle-age, most of us like...

Toby Young Ghosts Barbican Bomb-itty of Errors \c11...linbarsarfors In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings Hampstead Q n the face of it, the production of Ghosts currently playing at...

Patrick Carnegy Measure for Measure Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford A leading politician gets caught in a sex candal — some things never change,' thus the somewhat...

Peter Phillips A n intelligent fellow from Nantes — this isn't meant to be the beginning of a limerick — has invented a new kind of music festival. One wouldn't have thought...

James Delingpole M y favourite moment in Cambridge Spies was the puppy sequence. It's 1933 and, fresh from inventing the NHS, eradicating global poverty and starring in an...

Michael Vestey T ibya, it emerged in Crossing Continents i on Radio Four last week (Thursday), is opening up and allowing limited scrutiny of its affairs. Although it bears...

ra lu New York T his is a very good time to be in the Bagel. The sun's out, the girls are walking around in their briefest, Central Park's blooming all over, and Miss Monica...

Jeremy Clarke my boy asks me for advice about his future employment, I've always recommended that he might think about a career in sport, war or capitalism. Forget Art, I say....

Petronella Wyatt This year is the 60th anniversary of the I release of Casablanca. Poor old Humphrey Bogart didn't make it into even the top 20 of Channel 4's boringly bizarre...

MICHAEL HLNOEFISON M anchester United are the football champions of England again, for the eighth time in 11 seasons. Their victory against Charlton Athletic last weekend,...

at home most of the day. We have a Brazilian cleaning man who comes for three hours at a time three days a week. Our problem is that for a full half-hour of each of these...

summoned to attend a general diocesan synod meeting. These gatherings of more than 800 der* and laity are dull in the extreme. Such issues as 'The report of the Strategic...

problem with crepe neck. I do not wish to have a full facelift yet. What can I do in the short term, Mary? R.B., Norfolk A. Toupee tape is used by Hollywood stars wearing...