the Home Secretary David Blunkett after an inquiry by Sir Michael Bichard found 'fundamental and systematic' flaws in Humberside Constabulary's handling of intelligence; the...

Fat controllers 1 t is a seldom acknowledged benefit of rail privatisation that for ten years we have not had a national rail strike. This happy situation will come to an end...

shock waves from which were felt as far away as Switzerland. When the rumbling stopped, a great fire ensued, followed by a tsunami that washed away coastal villages. As I awoke...

T here has been a remarkable new buoyancy among Labour MPs this week. This can be partly accounted for by the apparent improvement in Iraq, England's footballing triumph over...

Tony Blair is right: the European constitution is a defeat for federalism. It is instead a triumph for centralism. Daniel Hannan outlines the sort of treaty the EU needs if...

'What, what, what,' said my husband, as if he had bought up a job lot of whats and wanted to use them up before the hot weather spoilt them. He was provoked by my having read...

South Africa is the only country that can effectively put pressure on Mugabe, says Andrew Meldrum, but instead it turns a blind eye to the old monster's reign of terror...

Ross Clark shows that for electoral reasons the government is rigging the market to ensure that the property boom continues I t is little wonder that Gordon Brown last week...

Small-minded conservatives regard 'choice' and 'consumerism' with disdain but, says Nick Herbert, together they can save the public services T here's a new buzz word at...

Our soccer fans are by no means the most thuggish in the world, says Rod Liddle, and he'll glass any smug Scotch git who says they are A rather smug, bearded Scotsman upbraided...

Max Hastings returns to Israel for the first time in 25 years, and is appalled by what he sees. All the same, he finds optimism amid the misery I , n Israel, history never goes...

From Mark Tinney Sir: Peter Oborne (Politics, 12 June) describes Ukip as a 'rackety collection of conmen, perjurers, convicted criminals and semi-racists'. This must be a...

From Cllr Richard Thomas Sir: Would that Shaftesbury had fought as valiantly against Tesco as Dominic Prince suggests (1-low Tesco makes its millions', 12 June). It was once,...

From William Shawcross Sir: Stephen Glover demands (Media studies. 19 June) that British papers such as the Sun. the Times and the Telegraph should . . consider apologising for...

From Clarke Hayes Sir: At the risk of sounding pedantic, Vita Sackville-West did not go through a syracusan nor a lesbian 'phase' (Harry Mount, Books, 19 June). Vita...

From Jonathan Mirsky Sir: Not for the first time Taki (High life, 12 June) praises Hitler's generals, in this case saying that 'if that moron Hitler had listened to von...

From Professor Stephen Senn Sir: Max Hastings is right that the Russians are somewhat reserved about the importance of D-Day (Diary, 12 June), although any view of their own...

From Stephen Schwartz Sir: Andrew Lambirth was quite wrong to say in his article (Arts, 5 June) that the artistic 'work of Alice Neel (1900-84) has never been shown outside her...

From Thomas Oliver Elmes Sir: There is much debate about the English football louts and the disgrace they bring to our country (England's thugs and losers', 12 June). They are...

From Susan Turner Sir: My brother was given a tortoise to cheer him up while recovering from whooping cough, aged seven (Letters, 5 June). He named it Jimmy. Previous tortoises...

From Toby Malik Sir: I work in a camera shop. One of our regulars came in, having returned from the 60th D-Day reunion with films for development. He said that he had had a...

T he largest of the occasions to mark the publication of Bill Clinton's autobiography was reportedly described in Manhattan as 'the mother of all book parties'. The phrase...

S truggles with manuscripts and proofs, urgent demands from editors and publishers and, let us admit it, the lure of exotic parties have prevented me from going down to Somerset...

A friend of mine on the board of Bigfours Bank — no names, no pack-drill — proposed to abolish the human resources department. The department would never propose this itself but...

o it's over. The Barclay brothers have bought the Telegraph Group, including The Spectator which is what we all thought they had done five months ago. Now only a last-ditch...

Henry Patterson HIMSELF ALONE: DAVID TRIMBLE AND THE ORDEAL OF UNIONISM by Dean Godson HarperCollins, £35, pp. 1002, ISBN 000257098X A biography of over 1,000 pages whose...

D. J. Taylor JEW MADE IN ENGLAND by Anthony Blond Timewell Press, £20, pp. 299, ISBN 1857252004 S ome years ago the author of this entertaining if characteristically diffuse...

Matthew Leeming JOSIAH THE GREAT by Ben Macintyre HarperCollins, £20, pp, 350, ISBN 0007151063 T he saga of the First Afghan War, one of the greatest disasters ever met by the...

Raymond Carr A CHANCE MEETING by Rachel Cohen Cape. .£16.99, pp. 363, ISBN 0224072587 L awyers meet lawyers, historians and economists meet their colleagues. They have a...

Ian Garrick Mason THE BROKEN STRING: THE LAST WORDS OF AN EXTINCT PEOPLE by Neil Bennun Viking, £17.99, pp. 420, ISBN 0670912506 I t was probably doomed to end badly. A...

Mark Archer THE WISDOM OF CROWDS: WHY THE MANY ARE SMARTER THAN THE FEW by James Sorowiecki Little, Brown, £16.99, pp. 295, ISBN 0316861731 jr ames Surowiecki is a Martian....

Jane Gardam COMFORT edited by Christopher Howse Continuum, 1:16.99, pp. 215, ISBN 0826472974 T his anthology will inevitably be called a 'bedside book' or 'the perfect bedside...

Lloyd Evans ROBERT BROWNING: A LIFE AFTER DEATH by Pamela Neville-Sington Weidenfeld. E20, pp. 340, ISBN 0297643967 cad.' That was Brovvning's mature estimation of Shelley, a...

P. J. Kavanagh BASIL D'OLIVIERA: CRICKET AND CONSPIRACY, THE UNTOLD STORY by Peter Oborne Little, Brown, 116.99, pp. 274, ISBN 0316725722 I t was comforting in the late 1960s...

Katherine Duncan-Jones THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE by Frank Kermode Weidenfeld, £12.99, pp. 194, ISBN 029784881X F rank Kermode's The Age of Shakespeare is an astonishing...

affront come from? What first, in other words, got the Pinter goat? A clue may be provided by an entrancing aside in Maureen Waller's London 1945: Life in the Debris of War. She...

Mark Glazebrook on a magnificent exhibition of work by 'Big George' in Vienna G iorgione! A name to conjure with. Other names such as Vasari, Byron and Walter Pater have...

Andrew Lambirth Henry Moore Dulwich Picture Gallery, until 12 September British Landscape Painting in the 20th Century Crane Kalman Galloy, 178 Brompton Road, London SW3, until...

Alan Powers A. i p - c i hitecture is en fête this month, with rchitecture Week (www.architectureweek.org.uk) taking place all over the country, and, for the first time, a more...

Russell Chamberlin T he main surviving section of Guildford's Norman castle is the keep or donjon. At first sight it resembles an 18th-century folly, as much as anything else,...

Rachel Halliburton The False Servant Conestoe Shining City Royal Court I f the writing of Marivaux were to be summed up as a food, his detractors would probably dismiss it as...

Patrick Camegy Tamar's Revenge Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon T his is the second of the four plays in the RSC's season of plays by Shakespeare's Spanish close...

Giannandrea Poesio The Soldier's Tale Linbuty Studio, Royal Opera House I gor Stravinsky referred to his 1918 work The Soldier's Tale suitably as tha Ire ambulant. This...

James Delingpole T he longer I do this job the more I realise how much I loathe television. Not all television ever — just the cheap, ugly, cynical, vacuous thing it has become...

Michael Vestey Tt can't have been that easy, the morning after, reporting the details of the new EU constitution signed in Brussels by Tony Blair. Today on Radio Four devoted...

Simon Courtauld T hegurnard is an odd fish. Known formerly as gurnet, it apparently makes a grunting sound (hence its French name, grondin) both in the water and when caught....

Tald Athens T he birthplace of selective democracy is looking better than it has since the Fifties, when the modernists took over. The ancient capital will be ready on 13...

Aldan Hartley Laikipia T he reality of owning a piece of land in a remote part of Kenya has sunk in painfully in recent weeks. We are in the middle of nowhere, beyond help, on...

Petronella Wyatt I t's bad news for 'yo-yo' dieters. A 'yo-yo' slimmer is apparently someone who diets repeatedly, losing and then putting on the pounds. Scientists have warned...

Any hopes that Peckham may harbour of shaking off its long-running association in the public's mind with On67 Fools and Horses will no doubt be scuppered by the...

s the kind of man who spends happy afternoons re-arranging his tea towels and dusting his bibelots, I laugh in the face of landlords' inspections, and now that my tenancy is...

FRANK KEATING A s well as the boy Rooney, another young Englishman has done good. Mick Channon is now a seriously good racehorse trainer and could be seen under his topper...

particular problem arises with what are best described as 'professional Englishmen'. These men, of often dubious past, make a living out of pretending to be lop-drawer' English....

Austria this summer. I normally bring luxury handmade chocolates or books to people with whom I stay, but this schloss has an in-house cook creating handmade chocolates while my...

and really would like to get into journalism when I leave university. I have lots of good ideas and would like to start writing freelance articles immediately but none of the...