violence in Iraq, `Our response to this should not be to run away in fright or hide away, or think that we have got it all wrong. Our response on the contrary should be to hold...

M argaret Thatcher is to blame for the abominable rudeness with which parents and children nowadays treat schoolteachers. So said Pat Lerew, president of one of the main...

having a snowball fight by the lifts at 1850, when my friend Charlotte said in urgent tones, 'You know you've been looking for Posh Spice?' Too damn right I had. Le tout...

A s Tony Blair mulled matters over last week at Government House, Bermuda, where he and his family spent Easter at a very reasonable £27 per night, the future must have looked...

War Cant Bingo. Was ever there prose so replete with the guff-inflated set phrases of war cant as the Prime Minister's article in the Observer at the weekend: 'Why we must never...

Iraq is a disaster in the making, says Andrew Gilligan, unless the Americans learn to stop playing into the hands of their enemies Baghdad T welve months after the war which...

Michael Cove says that the Daily Mail has been taken over by Tory appeasers who detest Americans, and the fight for Western civilisation in the Middle East C ould the Iraq war...

Here's a modish metaphor that is dead but hasn't stopped breeding: 'If! had taken cannabis, I would be transparent about it,' said Mr David Blunkett, the Home Secretary. 'I want...

The coalition has destroyed Baathism, says Rod Liddle, and with it all hopes of the emergence of secular democracy I write this as an armchair appeaser of terrorism and fascism...

Mercenaries make big money in Iraq but, says Sam Kiley, the 'outsourcing' of security work is adding to the chaos in the country T hey bustle through the Palestine Hotel lobby...

Whenever I go into a second-hand bookshop, which is often, I regret that I shall not live to be a thousand. There is so much I should like to read, and so much I should like to...

This week's elections in South Africa mark the tenth anniversary of the end of apartheid, but racism still governs the republic. Andrew Kenny on the dream that faded Cape Town...

A weekly survey of world restrictions on freedom and free trade Slaves transported from Africa to the New World in the 18th century had a wretched time, but does the same apply...

The dean of Wadham College, Oxford, James Morwood, says Harry Mount is wrong to despair of classical learning Iv e classicists like to think that our subject is one of the...

In order to do what little we can to turn the clock back, The Spectator hereby announces a monthly prize for composition in Latin or Greek, Readers are invited to submit...

From Colin Sowden Sir: David Lovibond (`The real racists', 10 April) is quite right in his assertion that culture rather than race and ethnicity is what determines whether an...

may I stand up and be counted? It is time that we who are proud to call ourselves English and/or British made our views known. By the same token, my congratulations to you for...

From Lord Hanningfield Sir: It is a shame that your magazine did not make a link between Rod Liddle's excellent article on central government's 'predict and provide'...

From Herb Greer Sir: Mark Steyn ('Murderous rhetoric', 10 April) is right on the money about the anti-Bush hatred which infects the Democratic party like a sort of metastasising...

From Michael Hirst Sir: At least, unlike Richard Perle, William ICristol and the other neocons who per suaded Bush to invade Iraq, Mark Steyn has the same commitment to the...

welcome migrants prepared to share an anglocentric world view. I'm sure that, like you, he thinks Eastern Europeans are an essential part of our economy, as they are willing to...

From R.E. Bland Sir: Peter Oborne's account of Tony Blair's ever increasing list of personal failures makes sickening reading (Politics. 10 April). He also touches on Jack...

Hitchens's implication (`Contempt for liberty', 10 April) that terrorists will be able to fake any form of ID is wrong and therefore an unconvincing argument for not introducing...

From Oliver Miles Sir: 'None of us,' writes Brendan O'Neill ('Some luvvies will believe anything', 3 April), 'knows for certain what goes on inside . . . Guantanamo Bay.'...

From Andre Zaluski Sir: It is not true, as Christopher Woodward writes in his review of Adam Zamoyski's book 1812 (Books, 10 April), that the Russian plan to draw Napoleon into...

From Sir James Mellon Sir: Petronella Wyatt has a sophisticated grasp of Central European mores and American quirkiness. Alas, nearer home she is something of a London...

T he recent death in his nineties of Brigadier Young, the distinguished army vet, struck a faint but clear chime of bells in my mind. He was famous for his skill with mules and...

T he Sun is very unhappy with Der Spiegel. According to the German magazine, Britain is a land of `declining moral fibre, public services and law and order'. Our hospitals are...

T wo of our least efficient and most tiresome systems of taxation are the council tax and Value Added Tax, so anyone who offers to fix them both has a great future in politics....

Philip Hensher THE HACK'S TALE by David Hughes Bloomsbury, £16.99, pp. 205, ISBN 074754591X Nv e had all probably agreed by now that the whole memoir thing was getting out of...

Alexander Chancellor THE SMOKING DIARIES by Simon Gray Granta, £14.99, pp. 230, ISBN 186207688X S imon Gray is 65 and is unwell. It's not clear from this brilliant book q uite...

Mary Furness So You THINK YOU'RE HUMAN? by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto OUP, £14.99, pp. 179, ISBN 0192804170 W hat does it mean to be human? The many possible answers to this...

Sebastian Smee THE LINE OF BEAUTY by Alan Hollinghurst Picador. £16.99, pp. 616, ISBN 033048320X N ick, the central character in Alan Hollinghurst's wonderful new novel, is a...

Lying awake, I correct to straight the crooked neck that's caused me years of pain by tilting my head off true. A minuscule adjustment, but one I must make. 'Doctor, will it...

Philip Ziegler WHO RUNS THIS PLACE? by Anthony Sampson John Murray, £20, pp. 418, ISBN 0719565642 H enry Fairlie may have coined the phrase 'The Establishment' but it was...

Byron Rogers THE CRIMEAN WAR by Clive Panting Chatto, £20, pp. 280, ISBN 0283073551 THE NATIONAL ARMY MUSEUM OF THE CRIMEAN WAR by Alastair Massie Sidgwick &Jackson, £25, pp....

Eric Christiansen CHRISTINA QUEEN OF SWEDEN by Veronica Buckley Fourth Estate, £20, pp. 479, ISBN 184115704X C hristina became queen of Sweden because her heroic father...

Josie Appleton believes the Trafalgar Square fourth plinth project is wrong headed T he Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group has retired to seek private sponsorship for the next...

Andrew Lambirth Bill Brandt: A Centenary Retrospective V&A, until 25 July photography is doing well at the I moment: 2004 is not only the centenary of Cecil Beaton. billed as...

Mark Steyn Hidalgo 124, selected cinemas A ccording to the late Osama bin Laden, ri.when people see the strong horse and the weak horse, they're naturally drawn to the strong...

Charles Spencer I T found myself in the depths of fear, guilt depression the other week, three old companions I thought I had put behind me when I gave up the drink, but who...

Michael Tanner Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Royal Opera House The Mikado Coliseum I l ad) , Macbeth of Mtsensk, Shostai kovich's scandalous opera, is the most successful thing that...

Patrick Camegy Romeo and Juliet Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford A s extreme, provocative productions of the classics tend now to be the rule rather than the exception,...

Lloyd Evans Audience and Protest Etcetera All For Nothing Menier Three on a Couch King's Head I 've always admired Vaclav Havel, poet, president and puffing-billy. His two...

Michael Vestey T he Nigerian playwright, poet and political activist Wole Soyinka would talk a geat deal of sense were he not so antiGeorge W. Bush as he appears to be in the...

James Delingpole W hen I told the Fawn that our evening's compulsory viewing was to be my preview tape of Hawking (BBC2, Tuesday) she wasn't happy. 'Oh, God,' she said. 'It's...

Simon Courtauld T heproliferating number and variety of uncooked prawns to be found in the shops put me in mind of the words of the foul-mouthed Australian, Barry McKenzie, in...

Alan Judd W hat do you think is the best car in the world?' asked my fellow rail sufferer as our train approached London Bridge like a reluctant glacier. I, too, have a stock...

Taki Av ording to Mr Michael Winner, the rench people are less than zero, a miserable bunch of rude pikers whose food he cannot stand — 'over-fussed and overpresented' — and,...

Jeremy Clarke Q baron's latest, Mickey, is so happy L./about the way things are going since Sharon accosted him in the pub and asked him how he broke his nose, he keeps on...

Petronella Wyatt I wasn't aware of the news this week that .Robbie Williams's sexuality has been the subject of speculation, as one newspaper put it, throughout his pop career....

Jonathan Ray takes a tour through New Zealand's wine country F orgive me if I state the obvious, but New Zealand is a very long way away. No, really, it is. If you go with the...

Rachel Johnson hoah! I'm going to Jamaica! Whoah! In the sunny Caribbean sea!' I hummed, as I sat in the lounge waiting to board my Air Jamaica flight, in the company of...

FRANK KEATING "E' or such a sublimely beauteous batsman he has a vulgarian's gluttony for runs. Brian Lards monolithic 400 not out mercilessly upstaged England's victory parade...

my life, to New Zealand and back. On the second lap of the long return journey, from LA to London, I returned to my correct seat, one of two near a window, to find a couple in...

charity muggers when they waylay me. I just firmly say, 'Not in the street, thank you,' and walk on. They fall back astonished, while I can continue with a priggish satisfaction...

A.W., London NW10 A. Thanks to my American correspondent, B. T, lam currently sampling ready-made neck-lift devices. Until I can recommend a brand, why not use a large-eyed...