by a Daily Telegraph reporter were said to discuss payments to Mr George Galloway, the MP for Glasgow Kelvin. Mr Galloway said: 'I have never solicited, nor would I have...

here is no task more difficult than that of educating British children. To the natural indiscipline of youth has now been kL added the indiscipline of parents, many of whom...

despite having been baptised A into it (I was six weeks old at the time, and had little say in the matter). However, conscious as I am of its residual cultural significance. I...

ritish politics has been frozen in a kind of reiterative cycle ever since Black Wednesday 4 1992: the Conservatives becalmed at 30 per cent in the polls, the Liberal Democrats...

I s Carole Caplin's continuing, apparently mesmeric, influence on the Prime Minister's domestic set-up going to produce a casualty? Westminster rumour has it that Alastair...

The government must not be allowed to adopt a European constitution without the consent of the governed, says Paul Robinson. Here he explains how we can hold our own referendum...

Q nly 15 per cent of people in Britain are aware that the EU is drafting a constitution. That's up 5 per cent from the month hefore (our YouGov poll for The Spectator was taken...

Andrew Gilligan on the charm of Ahmad Chalabi, the man the Americans want to lead the liberated nation Baghdad F or a would-be leader of the Iraqi people, Ahmad Chalabi is...

'nasty party' No opposition party has ever done so badly in the polls, says Michael Gove, and none has ever had less chance of winning over the voters A melancholy anniversary...

Mark Steyn says he is disgusted by what he sees as The Spectator's ill-judged and idle defence of the UN New Hampshire The UN should be appointed overseer of the peace not...

A curious piece of information came the other day from my friend Patrick Williams, the chef and flute-player, accompanying a very English set of photographs of the people of...

When our boys come home, hundreds of them will end up on the street: Mary Wakefield talks to neglected victims of war D on't be silly,' said my learned Tory friend Bruce....

Joe Queenan on the terror, misery and lunacy that have followed the smoking ban in New York New York F ifty-three years ago, Frank Loesser wrote a famous musical about the...

PAUL JOHNSON T o put up a plaque to Hazlitt in Soho was apt — he was the first Bohemian to die there. But the Hazlitt lobby should stop their nonsense about his being one of...

FRANK JOHNSON A merica's numbering of the Saddam regime's leading members, and issuing this order of precedence in the form of a deck of playing cards to aid American troops...

From Michael Fabricant, MP Sir: Tim Congdon ('The dawning of a new Europe', 19 April) rightly points out that there is a pressing need 'for the UK to reassess the economic case...

From Mr Henry Keswick Sir: William Shawcross ('Pax Americana', 12 April) was quite right to point out, in his excellent Harkness Lecture, the stream of thinly disguised...

From Mr Johnny Lea vesley Sir: Mark Steyn is often right and always engaging to read but he is wrong about the Hashemites (Leave Iraq to US', 5 April). The Hashemites rule...

From Mr Christopher Howse Sir: Michael Prodger's fascinating piece on Holbein's 'Dead Christ in the Tomb' (Arts, 19 April) suggests that it shows the dead body 'when Christ was...

From Mr Allan Massie Sir: Paul Johnson (And another thing, 19 April) quotes President McKinley's assur ance to a delegation to the White House that he had prayed `to Almighty...

From Mr Raleigh Trevelyan Sir: As A.L. Rowse's executor and neighbour, I certainly can agree that he could behave outrageously (Books, 29 March), but he was also kind and...

From Milica Pesic Sir: Phelim McAleer ('Happy hookers of Eastern Europe', 5 April) failed to provide a balanced range of views. As an organisation which specialises in reporting...

From Mr Harold Green Sir: It seems that, in order to get their hands on extra cash from the EU, certain anti-euro MEPs are pawning their ability to effectively promote the...

From Mr Tom Sackville Sir: Rod Liddle (The day of the jackals', 19 April) appears to make the following accusation. A group of art-dealing Republican party supporters/backers...

From Mr Peter Hammett Sir: I was interested to see that Peter °borne writes (Diary, 12 April), 'Much less confidence . . . reposes in the officers. They are being made up by the...

wrong to suggest that Galloway is a traitor STEPHEN GLOVER T he Daily Telegraph's story about the Scottish Labour MP Geor g e Galloway is undoubtedly a cracker. In some...

CHRISTOPHER FILDES M ay Day in the City brings the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres. to St Mary Le Bow in the name of fair trade. His diocesan adviser for social justice...

Philip Hensher ORYX AND CRAKE by Margaret Atwood Bloomsbuty, E16.99, pp. 374 ISBN 0747562598 I t's quite unusual for a novelist to write two entirely separate and different...

Digby Durrant FRANKIE AND STAN KIE by Barbara Trapido Bloomsbury, £16.99, pp. 307 ISBN 074756034X D id Barbara Trapido tell brilliant bedtime stories to children and one day...

Michael Glover THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE: A CENTENARY ANTHOLOGY selected by Michael Levey Yale, £29.95, pp. 256 ISBN 0300099118 I t is surely a cause for celebration when a...

Digby Anderson BEEF AND LIBERTY by Ben Rogers Chan°, £17.99, pp. 196 ISBN 070116980X B y Shakespeare's time, the English ate more meat, especially beef and mutton, than their...

Lucy Hughes-Hallett ELIZABETH AND MARY by Jane Dunn HatperCollins, £20, pp. 535 ISBN 0002571501 E lizabeth Tudor was 25 years old when she finally got her crown. Mary Stewart,...

Today in Castlereagh Street I Felt short of breath, and here is why. From the direction of the Quay Towards where Mark Foy's used to be, A glass and metal river ran Made in...

Paul Willetts SAMARITAN by Richard Price Bloomsbury £12.99, pp. 396, ISBN 0747562245 H ollywood-bound novelists are conventionally portrayed as striking a Faustian bargain....

Neil Clark A BRIEF HISTORY OF CRIME by Peter Hitchens Atlantic Books, 116.99, pp. 315, ISBN 1843541483 I t's fair to say that Peter Hitchens remains one of the most...

Helen Osborne SAM SPIEGEL by Natasha Fraser Cavassoni Little, Brown, £22.50, pp. 465 ISBN 0316848522 W henever 1 read of shenanigans on 'luxury yachts' I remember a trip around...

Andrew Lambirth THE JOURNALS by Josef Herman Peter 1 - laWan,125, pp. 263 ISBN 1870015819 M ost people familiar with the work of the Polish-British painter, Josef Herman,...

Nick Seddon THE LONDON PIGEON WARS by Patrick Neate Viking, 02.99, pp. 483 ISBN 0670912646 W hen Patrick Neate's second novel Twelve Bar Blues won the Whitbread prize in 2001,...

Susan Moore reports on how the market for Islamic art is still flourishing T here is a certain irony in the fact that the art market least affected by the fallout of 11...

Andrew Lambirth Graham Sutherland: A Life in Focus Pallant House, Chichester until II May An l i other centenary, another reassessent. Graham Sutherland (1903-80) is perhaps...

Mark Glazebrook Elisabeth Vellacott: A Memorial Exhibition Redfern Gallery, 20 Cork Street, Wl, until 15 May - Ellisabeth Vellacott (1905-2002) studied I ' at the Royal College...

Mark Steyn Trapped 15, selected cinemas K e l vin Bacon is so splendid in good rash (Wild Things, Tremors) that it pains one to see him in bad trash. Trapped goes wrong from...

Toby Young Under the Whaleback Royal Court Scenes From the Big Picture Cottesloe A Reckoning Soho Three Sisters Playhouse Ancestral Voices Jerrnyn Street I n the past year or...

Robin Holloway U ncanny and wonderful, to be locked up last week in the cathedral at Ely for four successive evenings from seven to ten at night, free to roam everywhere: up...

Michael Tanner Gotterdammerung Edinburgh Festival Theatre T his year's Edinburgh Festival will have as its focus two cycles of Wagner's Ring, which got under way three years...

James Delingpole T ast week I was on breakfast TV. When L.4he man from the BBC rang the night before I was unenthusiastic, but after I realised that the taxi wouldn't have to...

Michael Vestey S ince Malcolm Muggeridge, one of the most famous and illustrious journalists of the last century, died in 1990 little has been heard of his prolific sayings,...

Taki New York F laying the Frogs has replaced baseball as the national pastime in this here great country, with Murdoch's minions doing most of the flaying, using elegant...

Jeremy Clarke T he moment t heard on the radio that Dr Atkins was dead. I was in a caravan next to the beach at Polzeath, in north Cornwall, eating tinned spaghetti on toast....

Ai dan Hartley Laikipia T iving in the Kenyan highlands during Lathis war in Iraq I've felt like those Japanese soldiers who thought they were still supposed to be fighting...

Jaspistos In Competition No. 2286 you were invited to incorporate 11 given words, in any order, in a plausible piece of prose. Surprisingly my eccentric eleven proved tougher...

MICHAEL Salzburg T he thought occurred — again — the other night. as Simon 'von' Rattle carried his mighty Berliners through the greatest performance of Mahler's Fifth...

Q. I am shortly to give lunch to a number of high-profile people. Two of them have rung to inquire how late they can leave it before giving me a yes or a no. Do you agree with...