amalgamate all 19 single-battalion regiments into 'super regiments'. The BBC is to get rid of 3,000 staff in three years to save 1320 million. The Royal Commission on...

1 I anyone needed convincing of the BBC's pathological self-importance, proof has been provided by the corporation's news coverage of its own reorganisation. On Tuesday, a day...

-I was in Woolworths last Friday when a woman hit her little child across the head. Quite a few of us saw what she did, but none of us did anything. To be fair, it wasn't a hard...

T here is a contrast between John Monckton and almost everyone who has written about his murder. He was better prepared for his death than they were. He believed in divine grace...

M uriel Cullen, who died last week, aged 83, was the elder and only sister of Margaret Thatcher. Living happily with her husband on his well-run farm in Essex, she showed not...

In the first interview since he delivered his report, Lord Butler tells Boris Johnson that Britain suffers from an overmighty executive bringing in 'a huge number of extremely...

Martin Walker says that the UN oil-for-food scandal is as much about the anger of US nationalists as it is about bribes Washington T wo of the world's most impressive spin...

Rod Liddle on the idiocy of trying to bring down politicians for mere peccadillos while overlooking their real offences T he government continues to use very, very careful...

Heather McGregor argues that both the government and the opposition have got child care badly wrong M y nanny earns a basic salary of £240 a week. Doesn't sound too much to pay...

Simon Hafer on why it would be a thoroughly bad thing if the Olympics came to London A ccording to a recent opinion poll conducted by ICM, 75 per cent of Britons back London's...

The footballer Wayne Rooney recently put on a party for his girlfriend, and the two families were soon punching each other's lights out; and last week a court ruled on the fight...

killing Peter Oborne on the privatisation of security in Iraq and the rise of a new, respectable breed of mercenary E xecutives from a new type of company are doing the rounds...

STEPHEN GLOVER Did he kiss and tell? Blunkett's NoW transcript seems to absolve him L ast week I suggested that in August David Blunkett leaked news of his affair with...

CHRISTOPHER FILDES Forget about heritage, that's been done unless it's a West End theatre A rchie Rice urged his audience not to applaud too loudly: 'It's an old house. A very...

David Blunkett and knock down ginger: there are no easy answers DA any newspaper readers might not believe it but there are still some aspects of 'Blunkett-Quinn' that have not...

PAUL JOHNSON I have had my portrait painted. It was not my idea. One fault I do not possess is vanity. Indeed I am extremely vain about not being vain. The artist is a young...

From the Rt Hon Charles Clarke MP Sir: Ross Clark is wrong to assert that the government exerts any influence over the value ascribed to exams in school performance tables...

From Dr Sheridan Gilley Sir: Jonathan Osborne (Letters, 4 December) misses the point of the 1898 exam paper, in dismissing it for teaching such outdated skills as the 'ability...

From Ian Bennett Sir: Nicky Samengo-Turner ('New Labour's police state', 27 November) is not the only person unexpectedly to find himself in trouble over what he thought was a...

From Edward Spcilton Sir: Gareth Lawrence's response to Mr Samengo-Turner's arrest (Letters, 4 December) betrays the sort of aggressive, officious thuggishness which has become...

From Mark Wilson Sir: The rosy illusion of prosperity in urban Ulster for which Leo McKinstry Mister is all right', 4 December) seems to have fallen is founded on a bloated and...

From Bill Whelan Sir: Rod Liddle gets it wrong (Thought for the clay, 27 November). There are many more readers of The Spectator than the 65,000 who buy the magazine. Library...

From Blair Gibbs Sir: Someone should correct the misguided assumption of all Lefties that just across the North Sea lies a safe and contented socialist utopia (`Gordon's Swedish...

From the Revd Edmund Newey Sir: Theodore Dalrymple complains of the 'unctuously sermonising Church of England voice' that prompted him to turn off the wireless in disgust...

From Martin Vander Weyer Sir: The Master of the Ampleforth Beagles, as I said (`The hounds of heaven', 4 December), 'likes to . . correct hunting solecisms' — so I must...

Bevis Hillier J n October, jiffy bags piled up on my doorstep like sandbags around Whitehall in the Blitz. They were full of little books — potential stockingfillers — from the...

Ian Thomson HAWKWOOD: THE DIABOLICAL ENGLISHMAN by Frances Stonor Saunders Faber, £17.99, pp. 366, ISBN057121908X £15.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T he boil and hiss of...

M. R. D. Foot TAIL-END CHARLIES by John Nichol and Tony Rennell Viking, £18.99, pp. 470, ISBN 0670914568 (0 £16.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 SOO 4848 BOMBER CREW by John Sweetman...

Tom Sutcliffe THE DIARIES by Lindsay Anderson, edited by Paul Sutton Methuen, £25, pp. 528, ISBN 0413773973 ct £23 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 NEVER APOLOGISE: THE COLLECTED...

Lloyd Evans THE LAST HUMAN CANNONBALL by Byron Rogers Aurum, .E12.99, pp. 2645, ISBNI845130413 111.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 S coundrels and daredevils — these are...

Peter J. M. Wayne AN UNFINISHED LIFE by Mark Spragg Cape, £16.99, pp. 257, ISBN 0224073540 kl5 £14.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 1 n the wake of a presidential election...

D. J. Taylor HALF AN ARCH by Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy Timewell Press, £20, pp. 368, ISBN 1857252012 0 ne of the more amusing characteristics of the English upper classes is...

Kate Grimond OUR HIDDEN LIVES: THE EVERYDAY DIARIES OF A FORGOTTEN BRITAIN, 1945-48 by Simon Garfield Ebuty Press, 119.99, pp. 560, ISBN 0091896959 t 116.99 (plus £2.25 p&p)...

Charles Allen WAHHABI ISLAM: FROM REVIVAL AND REFORM TO GLOBAL JIHAD by Natana J. DeLong-Bas I. B. Tauris, £19.95, pp. 374, ISBN 185043679 7 ® E17.95 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800...

Sophie Lewis THE FLOOD by David Maine Canongate, £12.99, pp. 272, ISBN 184195537X £11.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 MR TIMOTHY by Louis Bayard John Murray, £12.99, pp....

Christopher Woodward BRITAIN'S BEST MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES by Mark Fisher Allen Lane, £30, pp. 416, ISBN0713995750 M ark Fisher begins this personal selection of the best 350...

Juliet Townsend 1 n the wall behind my mother's chair in the drawing-room was a little cupboard which contained half a dozen children's books. They ranged in date from the...

LIven as the Christmas season draws in , I ' upon us, the academy's best-loved post-foxhunting bloodsport — pointing out scholarly inadequacies in the new Dictionary of...

Stephen Pettitt travels to Singapore to find out what we can expect from its season in London E very nation seems to be at it. Japan, Portugal, Hungary, Brazil, Sweden — all...

Andrew Lambirth B.F. Watts: Portraits Fame & Beauty in Victorian Society National Portrait Gallery, until 9 January 2005 T hereputation of George Frederick Watts (1817-1904)...

Self-taught prodigy Selina Mills Pamela Blanco (1906-94) England & Co, 216 Westboume Grove, W11, until 1 2 January 2005 . . . Over her paint and her colours bent Can paint...

Mark Amory The Phantom of the Opera I2A, selected cinemas O ne of the great pieces of good fortune in my life was that my parents despised pantomime. Instead, the theatrical...

Snow White on steroids Lloyd Evans By the Boa of Cats Wyndham :s Anna In the Tropics Hampstead G ood news for Holly Hunter. She'll be home by Christmas. The play in which...

Wild about the dog Patrick Carnegy The Two Gentlemen of Verona; Julius Caesar Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon W hat does anyone readily recall of the Two Gents other than...

Improving the soil Ursula Buchan I n our garden, there is a two-seater, brick-built privy. It hasn't been used for 40 years or so, but its presence in the garden still has a...

1 hank you, me Marcus Berkmann Ag ain, the question looms. As you buy ountless copies of Robbie Williams's Greatest Hits on Amazon for all your deadbeat friends and relatives...

Coltrane in a new light Stuart Nicholson T oday, the name Coltrane prompts unreasonable expectation of raising the sunken treasures of tenor saxophonist John Coltrane's...

Michael Tanner The Rape of Lucretia Royal College of Music The Magic Flute Royal Academy of Music rr he royal schools of music have been covering themselves with operatic...

Dispiriting age Michael Vestey S omeone asked me the other day whether or not I listen regularly to Desert Island Discs on Radio Four. I told her I don't, and she asked why....

James Delingpole - near, lovely hut dangerously optimistic and quite often wrong Matthew Parris had a go at rite in the Speccie the other week when en passant he mentioned TV...

Drained and ravished Taki I suppose winning the Nobel Prize for curing cancer would get me more brownie points, but being the man who took Jemima Khan to High Table at Trinity...

Jeremy Clarke M y plea for the anti-smoking drug Zyban was flatly refused. Because Zyban has been known to trigger epilepsy, said the doctor, he'd only prescribe it as a last...

Irresponsible behaviour Petronella Wyatt T he other day I arrived back from a trip abroad to find the house in its usual state of working order. The boiler had burst and there...

Jaspistos In Competition No. 2370 you were asked for a poem expressing either approval or disapproval of the habit of smoking. About smoking, as about many things, I am in two...

FRANK KEATING 4 el Boy' Trotter, television's engag ingly endurable (and perpetually replayed) comic Cockney character created by actor David Jason, forever dreams of putting...

Q. In Scotland the Celtic tradition favours the female line (hence hereditary titles passing to daughters in the absence of an immediate male heir). In my opinion it would...