I n September 2006, as Tony Blair was forced to bring forward his departure date by backbench rebellion, The Spectator predicted a Labour civil war. It was not clear when this...

FRANCES OSBORNE O n Monday morning I am outwitted by my four-year-old daughter, who manages to leave for school in a light cotton dress on a phenomenally cold and wet spring...

W hy is the abolition of the 10p rate of tax unlike any other rebellion of backbench Labour MPs? The answer lies in the mood of Labour backbenchers following decades of...

CHARLES MOORE T he growing power of Islam in Britain has forced the British public to learn more about its component parts — Sunnis and Shiites, Deobandis and Barelwis, and...

MONDAY Hooray! Britain is going Conservative crazy!! The sun is shining and all over the country people are waking up to the exciting new force in British politics!!! Actually,...

David Cameron talks to Fraser Nelson about his local election triumphs, admits that he is not going to ‘agree on everything’ with the new Mayor of London, and says Boris...

James Forsyth says that Hillary’s disappointment in Tuesday’s primaries is matched by the decline in Obama’s image, as the sheen of the wunderkind fades and doubts...

Stanley Johnson is adjusting to his new constitutional position in the life of London: not least deciding which clubs to avoid at lunchtime in order to dodge Boris’s...

Andrew Neil offers a despairing snapshot of cancelled trains, ludicrously expensive rail tickets, hell at Terminal 5, nonexistent customer service. Does anyone want to fix...

Theo Hobson meets Gene Robinson, the only openly gay Anglican bishop, who says that homosexuals are more open to the Christian ‘message of radical change’ I am sitting in St...

Rod Liddle says that there is a natural hope that the interventions of the UN and charities in the disaster-stricken country will open it up. But history does not support such...

BARRY HUMPHRIES O nly the most venerable and knowledgeable London cab driver has heard of Belsize Circus, a roundabout near the slums of Kilburn Heights where I have my...

Israel and Palestine Sir: Melanie Phillips (‘Happy 60th birthday, Israel’, 3 May) denies Israel one of its greatest successes over the last 60 years by deliberately...

‘ Y ou have reminded me, Mr Speaker, that for a minister resigning, permission to make a Personal Statement to the House is granted entirely at your discretion and should be...

A re there too many biographies? Thomas Carlyle thought so 150 years ago. ‘What is the use of it?’ he wrote growlingly. ‘Sticking like a woodlouse to an old bedpost and...

Matthew Lynn says hedge-fund pioneer and currency speculator George Soros is still a brilliant player of markets — but as a philosopher, frankly, he’s incomprehensible I f...

I went to visit Mao Tse-tung the other day. The embalmed body of the Father of communist China lies in a mausoleum in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. There he rests in his...

Jonathan Mirsky REAPPRAISALS: R EFLECTIONS ON THE F ORGOTTEN T WENTIETH CENTURY by Tony Judt Heinemann, £20, pp. 446, ISBN 9780224080606 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429...

Jane Ridley A XEL M UNTHE : T HE R OAD TO S AN M ICHELE by Bengt Jangfeldt, translated by Harry Watson I. B. Tauris, £25, pp. 381, ISBN 9781845117207 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45...

Matthew Dennison T HE C ROWDED S TREET by Winifred Holtby Persephone, £12, pp. 307, ISBN 9781903155660 T hose days are gone in which romantic novels had heroines called...

Andrew Taylor REVELATION by C. J. Sansom Macmillan, £17.99, pp. 452, ISBN 9781405092722 ✆ £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 C . J. Sansom’s Shardlake series concerns...

Philip Mansel P ARADISE L OST : S MYRNA 1922 by Giles Milton Sceptre, £20, pp. 426, ISBN 9780340837863 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T HE B RIDGE by Geert Mak...

Sara Wheeler T HE B OLTER by Frances Osborne Virago, £18.99, pp. 316, ISBN 9781844084814 ✆ £15.19 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T his sprightly book recounts the life of...

Martin Davies P LAYING C ARDS IN C AIRO : M INT T EA , T ARNEEB AND T ALES OF THE C ITY by Hugh Miles Abacus, £10.99, pp. 279, ISBN 9780349119793 ✆ £8.79 (plus £2.45 p&p)...

Byron Rogers H ALFWAY TO V ENUS by Sarah Anderson Umbrella Books, 13a Blenheim Crescent, London W11 2EE, £12.99, pp. 264, ISBN 9780954262426 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870...

Sarah Burton S TAGE D IRECTIONS : W RITING ON T HEATRE , 1970-2008 by Michael Frayn Faber, £20, pp. 268, ISBN 9780571240555 To be a member of a good audience is exhilarating....

Stanley Johnson T HE G LENTHoRNE C AT AND o THER A MAZING L EoPARD SToRIES compiled and edited by Christopher Ondaatje HarperCollins, £7.95, pp. 216, ISBN 9781554681846 ✆...

356, ISBN 9780091909130 ✆ £15.19 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 R EAL E NGLAND by Paul Kingsnorth Portobello Books, £14.99, pp. 312, ISBN 9781846270413 ✆ £11.99 (plus...

T he great director and critic François Truffaut once labelled James Stewart as one of those rare actors who could be ‘moving and amusing within the same scene’. Quite so....

W hen I first saw the card for Maria Lassnig’s show I thought it was just another young or middle-aged artist trying it on. Then I discovered that Lassnig was born in 1919,...

Roderick Conway Morris A ll empires eventually bite off more than they can chew. Rome and the Barbarians , the latest exhibition under the new management at Palazzo Grassi in...

Marcus Berkmann I t’s tough out there in the crazy world of pop. Two years ago The Feeling were the most played act on British radio. Their debut album, Twelve Stops and Home...

Lloyd Evans Tinderbox Bush The Year of Magical Thinking Lyttelton I f you aren’t sure what to make of the present, try shoving it into the future. This trusted device is...

Patrick Carne gy The Taming of the Shrew; The Merchant of Venice Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon W hile the RSC’s Histories sequence is rightly grabbing critical and...

Deborah Ross Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? 12A, Nationwide O K, we’re busy people, so straight to the point on this one, and yet I’m already struggling, because...

Charles Spencer I ’m writing this on the May Day bank holiday, with birds singing outside, probably in terror as the cat Nelson is on the prowl, searching for some luckless...

Michael Tanner Macbeth Opera North Punch and Judy Young Vic The Minotaur Covent Garden Don Giovanni English Touring Opera, Cambridge I n a hectic and heterogeneous operatic...

Simon Hoggart T his week marked the start of the 15th year of The Simpsons (Channel 4, often). The other day I went to a talk by Tim Long, the executive producer of the show,...

Kate Chisholm I t was a daringly original thing to do. To write a play where the heroine stays silent for most of the time. And the drama’s creator, Anthony Minghella,...

Taki I am heartbroken but for once it is not over a girl. I have to stay in the Bagel, hence missing The Spectator ’s 180th anniversary party, Pug’s club’s first annual...

Jeremy Clarke B ank holiday Saturday afternoon and I’m standing in a jam-packed railway carriage bound for Cardiff in Wales. If I lift my head, my face is in my nearest...

Melissa Kite O nce a year, usually at the beginning of summer, it suddenly occurs to me that the entire house is about to fall down. The realisation that every job I’ve...

Janet de Botton E ach year in February, Icelandair sponsors one of the best events in the bridge calendar. Held in Reykjavik it is a high-standard, international pairs and...

Oscar Humphries learns the hard way F or some time I’ve wanted to learn French so that next time I get ripped off at the Paris flea market I’ll be able to go down with a...

Christa D’Souza plans a Caribbean summer H ate crowds? Haven’t booked your summer holidays yet? Want to feel like you’re getting your money’s worth just this once? If...

Last week I commented favourably on Andrew Greet’s book on the Accelerated Dragon. In passing, I mentioned that the standard dragon itself is full of tactical possibilities...

Lucy Vickery In Competition No. 2543 you were invited to submit a poem about the things people need to live on, in which the first letter of each line spells out the first 16...

I t was not until I saw Boris making his acceptance speech at City Hall just after midnight that I decided to gatecrash his victory party. I was quite drunk, having just hosted...

The events of 1 May seem a long time ago, and so does their sequel, a so-called fightback by the Labour party. A press briefing last Sunday declared in a fine froth of mixed...

T he infinite capacity of men to talk utter balls about football should never amaze, but the level of spiteful twaddle spouted about Chelsea’s Avram Grant, which started at...

Q. Please advise me. I have a friend whose mobile has no signal when she is at home. When I ring her landline her father always says he will pass the message on that I have rung...