A t a specially reconvened hearing of the Hutton inquiry into circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, the expert on Iraqi weapons, Sir Kevin Tebbit, the permanent...

t Alfred Roberts's grocery store in Grantham in the 1930 husband, wife and daughters all took their turn behind the counter. For any Conservative, the decision to employ other...

T he Man Booker Prize dinner was held on Tuesday in the Egyptian room of the British Museum. It's something of an ordeal for the six on the shortlist who have to wait until the...

PETER ()BORNE T hree events counted at Westminster this week. The first, and by far the most important, was the dramatic testimony given on Monday to Lord Hutton by Kevin...

' T here is a distinctly dark cloud settling upon what was, until lately, considered one of New Labour's chirpiest and most up-and-coming households. Consider, with sympathy,...

lain Duncan Smith defends himself — and his wife — against the plotters and the smear campaign, and calls on the Tories to get on with the work of promoting freedom and...

A weekly survey of world restrictions on freedom and free trade If you live near an Esso petrol station, your home or your car may by now have been plastered with 'Stop Esso'...

Michael Gove on the fear and loathing in the Tory ranks as IDS fights for his survival I n all its long history, the parliamentary Tory party has never been so depressed. If a...

Cheque-books have been sharpened in America to lure top professors to top universities, and the ones attracting the most attention are those 'great communicators' with a...

If the euro replaces the dollar as the world's reserve currency — and reports from Russia last week suggest it might — there is likely to be a high price to pay. Simon Nixon...

America has defeated Iraq in the field but, says Paul Robinson, she has not won the battle against terrorism or her enemies in Europe and on the East River 1 t is perhaps as...

A book title jumped out at me in a secondhand shop the other day: Eagles, Hawks and Falcons of the World: A detailed two-volume work on diurnal birds of prey. I can hardly tell...

Nationalisation has saved our country houses, says Simon Jenkins, but in some cases the price of survival has been loss of dignity T wenty years ago I visited the Harpur-Crewe...

Because they have to Melanie Phillips says that both Tories and New Labour make impossible promises, and flee from the issues that really trouble voters T ony is fighting...

STEPHEN ro W FR N igel Dempster was the most famous print journalist of modem times, even though he seldom appeared on television. I remember his coming down to Oxford in the...

From Judith Rona How refreshing to read the good sense expressed in your editorial about Syria's terror sponsorship (11 October). United Nations Security Council Resolution...

From Dr Craig Gerrard Sir: Michael Henderson is so right to imply that football has much to learn from rugby, a sport which in his words 'abounds in goodness' (Sport, 11...

From Nick Herbert Sir: I fear the fetid air in Blackpool may have affected Peter Obome's usually sound judgment. His implication that Reform's criticism of the Conservative...

From Michael Cockerell Sir: Frank Johnson (11 October) quotes lain Duncan Smith telling a television interviewer that in opposition Mrs Thatcher was derided in the media as...

From John Stott Sir: David Lovibond tells us that drugs and drink have turned Devizes into a place of incoherent rage (Town and out', 11 October). I have lived in Devizes for...

From William Foster Sir: Robert Oakeshott says that Kenneth Kaunda was often thought of as a 'holy fool' (Books. 11 October). I can vouch for the 'fool' part, but saw little...

From Lucinda Ben-David Sir: I have read and admired Mr Dahymple's articles so much that it is too bad that the one time I am moved to write to you it is to comment negatively on...

From Paul Kellogg Sir: Mark Steyn likens the public naming of a CIA agent to the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s ('Bigger than Watergate', 11 October). Mr Steyn seems to...

From Ian Mertling-Blake Sir: The designer Bunny Roger, distinguished for conspicuous wartime gallantry, as Gerard Henry reminds us (Letters, 11 October), was also remarkable for...

PAUL JOHNSON C ounselling, in its many forms, has spread rapidly in recent years and evokes scathing criticism, especially when the police, who can't be bothered to investigate...

he view, I thought, appeared much as it would to a young barnacle goose. I was diving out of a blustery, dove-grey sky, my wing tips tipping cloud. Far below I could see the...

ROD LIDDLE T hese are exciting times to be a worshipper in the Church of England. We may be about to have a schism. It was a schism which, if you recall, led to the creation of...

F _ irst confidence, then enthusiasm, then panic, then funk — that, so Sir Patrick Sergeant would say, is the market's cycle. Earlier this year, when share prices had fallen...

George Trefgarne talks to Baron David de Rothschild, who gives his first interview as head of the City's most distinguished and enduring merchant bank F _ ortunes rise and...

Nigel Thomas says that the stock-picker is back and the tracker funds are off the rails. Forget the idea that all boats will float up with the tide I t is difficult to predict...

Becky Barrow spends the day with Digby Jones, the director-general of the employers' organisation, the CBI D igby Jones is a man who, it has been said, would not look out of...

William H. Janeway explains that the dotcom madness has laid the foundation for prosperity ahead. It happened when railways and canals were superhighways S ince it has become...

Robin Angus has words of comfort for them — and in elegant heroic couplets, too. . . Q f all the woes a long bear market brings, Here (by request) an honest Scotchman sines...

David Kynaston conjures up the City in the year of The Spectator's birth, when the first Rothschild was at his pillar in the Royal Exchange 0 ne man dominates the City of...

Jim Budd warns investors that their hopes of vintage gains may end up corked, leaving them with a nasty taste in the cellar and the wallet Nv ine investment sounds so enticing,...

CHRISTOPHER FILDES I thought that my bank would recognise me by now, if only with a light shudder. My account has been there for half a century, moving gently up and down the...

Sebastian Smee GOYA by Robert Hughes Hamill, £20, pp. 429, ISBN 1843430541 `Self-portrait in the Studio' (detail), 1790-95, (Madrid, Real Academia de Bellas Aries de San...

James Delingpole I'm LEAVING YOU SIMON, You DISGUST ME . . by William Donaldson Weidenfeld, £9.99, pp. 272, ISBN 03043657501 u ntil I read his enthralling account of what it's...

Ian Garrick Mason RIFLES: SIX YEARS WITH WELLINGTON'S LEGENDARY SHARPSHOOTERS by Mark Urban Faber, £20, pp. 351, ISBN 0571216803 1 nthe spring of 1990, at the age of 21, I...

Sam Phipps THE ENDS OF OUR TETHERS: THIRTEEN SORRY STORIES by Ala sdair Gray Canongate, £12, pp. 161, ISBN 1841954403 A lasdair Gray holds a treasured place in Scottish...

Peregrine Worsthorne MARGARET THATCHER, VOLUME II: THE IRON LADY by John Campbell Cape, 125, pp. 913, ISBN 0224061569 1 n the course of John Campbell's superb second volume of...

Ray Monk HITLER'S SCIENTISTS by John Cornwell Penguin/Viking, £20, pp. 535, ISBN 0670893625 W hen Michael Frayn wrote Copenhagen, he could surely scarcely have imagined the...

Stephen Abell ARTHUR MILLER: A LIFE by Martin Gottfried Faber, ,f25, pp. 496, ISBN 0571219462 T he early life of Arthur Miller reads a bit like the first chapters of The...

Julie Burchill THE BoY by Germaine Greer Thames & Hudson, £29.95, pp. 256, ISBN 050023809X A t the risk of being vulgar, I can't help thinking that Dr Greer's ('At least she's...

Anne Chisholm THE CENTRE OF THE BED by Joan Bakewell Hodder & Stoughton, £20, pp. 321 ISBN 0340823100 I nthe early 1950s, when Joan Bakewell, just down from Cambridge,...

Keith Baxter ALEC GUINNESS: THE AUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY by Piers Paul Read Simon & Schuster, £20, pp. 640, ISBN 0743207297 m any years ago in Belfast, when I was playing Prince...

Brian Masters BENEATH A WANING MOON: DIARIES 1985-1987 by James Lees-Milne John Murray, .02.50, pp. 272, ISBN 0719562198 I t is difficult to demonstrate why the Lees-Milne...

in this country has been largely founded on cheap and cheerful bottles. party wines; Hardy's, Lindeman's, Nottage Hill all offer decent, good-value drinking. Though I draw the...

Andro Linkiater DIE IF YOU MUST by John Hemming Macmillan, ,f30, pp. 855, ISBN 1405000953 I n1961 the anthropologist Richard Mason was exploring a river in southern Amazonia...

Annabel Ricketts enjoys a visual feast at the V&A but takes issue with the show's lack of rigour T he V&A's exhibition Gothic: Art for England 1400-1547 brings together a...

John Spurling Lynn Chadwick Tate Britain, until 21 March 2004 Beata Arts, Cork Street, London WI, until 15 November 2003 L y o nn Chadwick died in April at the age f 88. His...

Andrew Lambirth Turner and Venice Tate Britain. until 11 fa Ililaly 2004 Tn the Linbury Galleries is a heart-warmling exhibition of joyous celebration, a treat for the eye...

John McEwen Crahlie Aitchison Royal Academy, until 9 November phis long-overdue Aitchison celebration comes in two parts — a retrospective of the paintings in the RA's...

Ursula Buchan N ext Tuesday is Apple Day and somewhere near you this weekend there will be an apple-centred event, offering tastings, expert advice and identification of garden...

Charles Spencer T have been worrying of late that Olden 1 but Golden isn't olden enough. I've been listening to pop music for 40 years now, having first been hooked by the...

Lloyd Evans The Maths Tutor Hamps.tead Romeo and Juliet Young Vic Oedipus Old Fire Station, Oxford, and touring nly a swine would be a theatre critic. 4 ...—/Think of it. You...

Giannandrea Poesio Trisha Brown Dance Company Sadler's Wells Theatre O nce upon a time in the USA, a group of independent artists and dancemakers decided to distance...

Michael Tanner Orlando Royal Opera House Rusalka Opera North H andel's Orlando can be a thrilling as well as moving experience. A couple of days before I saw the Royal Opera's...

Mark Steyn Q uentin Tarantino's first film in six years opens with the Bride' (Uma Thurman) in silhouette in her hospital bed as Nancy Sinatra sings 'Bang Bang (She Shot Me...

Simon Hoggart Y ou could tell Henry VIII (ITV) was going to be a hoot from the beginning, when Joss Ackland, playing the dying Henry VII in a two-line cameo role, told his son:...

Michael Vestey I've not been much of an admirer of Radio Four's documentary series File on Four, produced in Manchester, but last week's edition (Tuesday) was fascinating. It...

Alan Judd D uring the initial stage of a loop in a fast jet trainer, the g-force makes you feel you're sharing the cockpit with an invisible elephant, and your head becomes a...

Robin Oakley Y ou could see yourself reflected in the shine on Kieren Fallon's riding boots. The benevolent sun, dare I say it of a lady, streamed through the whiskers on the...

Taki Washington, DC B yall accounts the American Conservative's first anniversary party went off without a hitch. My friend Prince Radziwill came over for it, as did Charlie...

Jeremy Clarke There were three of us sitting around 1 the kitchen table drinking coffee: me, my boy, and an old friend of my mother called Edna. Edna is one of those bornagain...

Petronella Wyatt T he Americans are rebelling — not against Arnie's election as governor of California and not against the policies of the Bush administration. No, these are...

The good news is that Patrick Taylor, the managing director of Monarch Assurance, which sponsors the annual tournament in Port Erin on the Isle of Man, has recently been...

Jaspistos In Competition No. 2311 you were invited to supply an account of your experiences as a modern Gulliver who has landed on a modern Lilliput or Brobdingnag. As a boy I...

MICHAEL HENDERSON H aving a boot in both camps, I am sometimes asked about the differences in writing about sport and the performing arts. The first thing I say is pretty...

Q. Every day I find myself reading Today's Birthdays in the Daily Telegraph. Do you know how I go about being included? Is a title helpful? (If so I will have to try harder.)...