A fter claims that the Irish Republican Army was importing guns from Russia and had drawn up hitlists of Conservative politicians, Mr Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein,...

T he polls show that the majority of Tory voters approve of Gordon Brown's tax increases to pay for improvements to the National Health Service. The Tory party should ignore the...

R ecently, owing to the sudden and serious illness of a beloved friend, I've been pondering the difference between contemplating dying at a mature age and facing death before...

Who is the more trustworthy: Alastair Campbell or Black Rod? STEPHEN GLOVER T ony Blair is taking the London Evening Standard, the Mail on Sunday and The Spectator to the...

MATTHEW PAR RIS I have found a secret railway. Northern Spain knows it is possible to travel by train from Barcelona up into the Catalan Pyrenees. Southern France knows it is...

In this exclusive interview with John Laughland, Jean-Marie Le Pen heaps contempt on the palm-greasers, opportunists and back-scratchers who make up the French political...

ISRAEL blitzes Palestinian territory while America tries to get a stranglehold on al-Qa'eda's mountain hideouts. Both can claim 'victory', but an enemy must (in a sense) agree...

Peter °borne hopes that Her Majesty's colt Right Approach will crown the Jubilee Year by winning the Derby SO FAR Jubilee Year has been wretched for Her Majesty the Queen....

Ross Clark hopes that Prince William's enthusiasm for geography does not mean that he'll start lobbing bricks at McDonald's IT is one final indignity, many will feel, which...

I HAVE for you a television footnote, but before that an irritating cliche. First of all, though, thank you for sorting out the biblical origin of the strange conceptual...

Sion Simon is going blind. He bumps into things. His friends are embarrassed. He is frightened IT's a funny business, going blind. Not literally, of course. Or at least it's...

Julian Manyon on how he was barred from Bagram airbase after an altercation with a wild-eyed Afghan warrior Kabul I MUST confess that one of my many failings is a fiey temper,...

In the wake of the Budget, Nick Herbert wonders just whose side the CBI is on, anyway BY common consent, smokers and childless Middle Englanders had a bad Budget. But no one...

THE Americans have a theory that to allow small crimes to go unremarked and unpunished is to invite bigger crimes. Needless to say, Britons of intellectual disposition despise...

Martin Vander Weyer says that Derek Wanless is very bright — but that may not be why Gordon Brown chose him as his health adviser THERE was a certain logic in Gordon Brown's...

PAUL JOHNSON I have been rereading Dombey and Son, and was struck again by what I consider the most moving line in Dickens's entire oeuvre, which occurs at the end of the last...

From His Excellency Stanislaw Komorowski Sir: I do not accept Andrew Alexander's thesis that the Cold War was the fault of Poland (`The Soviet threat was bogus', 20 April). I...

From Mr A. N. Wilson Sir: Readers who reached the end of Melanie Phillips's article ('Why the Jews are always to blame', 20 April) will see a number of contentious and...

From Hady Moslahian Sir: It is interesting to note that your leading article (13 April) says that the political culture of the Middle East has become more democratic. In 1953 a...

From Mr Basil Highton Sir: As an arachnophile I deplore Mr Gosling's advice (Letters, 20 April) to Lord Mancroft to stop killing mammals and to stamp on a few spiders. Suppose...

From Mr Theo Aronson Sir: I'm afraid that your correspondent (Letters, 20 April) has got the facts wrong in the story about the Queen Mother and the stormy-skied John Piper...

From Mr Ronald Harrison Sir: Nicholas Farrell (`Maggie, not Musso', 20 April) is absolutely correct in describing Berlusconi's economic policy as Thatcherite or Blairite rather...

From Mr Tim Martin Sir: The headline of the advertisement on behalf of Britain in Europe (page 27, 13 April) stated, 'They said the euro would never happen . . . but it has.' My...

From Mr Damien McCrystal Sir: Matthew Parris (Another voice, 13 April) asserts that 'a pint of vodka can stop all speech'. I don't want to come over all European, but doesn't he...

Philip Hensher THE HITLER EMIGRES by Daniel Snowman Chatto, £20, pp. 466, ISBN 0701168803 h is is a wonderful, inspiring story; and perhaps the best way to convey the...

Charlotte Joll PANDORA by Jilly Cooper Bantam Press, £17.99, pp. 552. ISBN 0593046978 T he last time I reviewed a Jilly Cooper novel in The Spectator my mother commented...

Anne Applebaum THE OLIGARCHS: WEALTH AND POWER IN THE NEW RUSSIA by David E. Hoffman Public Affairs Books, £19.99, pp. 567, ISBN 1903985269 U p to a point, the life story of...

Michael Rose H. JONES V. C. by John Wilsey, with an introduction by John Keegan Hutchinson, £18.99, pp. 308, ISBN 0091793556 T he 1982 war in the Falklands represented a gross...

Caroline Moore FROM THE LAND OF GREEN GHOSTS by Pascal Khoo Thwe HarperCollins, f17.99, pp. 304, ISBN 0007116810 I n the autumn of 1991, a new undergraduate entered the Gate of...

Theo Richmond A LIFE IN PIECES by Blake Eskin AI1111111 Press, £16.99, pp. 245, ISBN 1854107623 I met Binjamin Wilkomirski once, in the spring of 1997. He had flown into London...

Caroline Moorehead SUNBATHING IN THE RAIN: A CHEERFUL BOOK ABOUT DEPRESSION by Gwyneth Lewis Flamingo, £14.99, pp. 245, ISBN 0007120613 very serious episode of depression',...

Martin Gayford applauds the Royal Academy's latest exhibition h e Royal Academy has redeemed itself. Its main exhibition at the moment, Paris: Capital of the Arts, is one of the...

Adrian Berg: Touring the Antipodes (Piccadilly Gallery, 43 Dover Street, London Wl, till 3 May) Intriguing patterns Andrew Lambirth A drian Berg (born 1929) is one of our...

Making connections Robin Holloway S ometimes exactly, mainly loosely, music has always been associated down the ages with colour, movement, visual imagery. Its mainstream...

The Glee Club (Duchess) A Buyer's Market (Bush) The Night Heron (Royal Court) Important digressions Toby Young W hen I moved back to London recently after five years in New...

Roadkill (15, selected cinemas) Trucking along Mark Steyn R oadkill was called Joy Ride in the United States, and the British title is a great improvement, if a little...

Who is the Chancellor? Michael Vestey B y now, of course, the full implications of the Budget will have sunk in and we'll have a clear idea of how much worse off we will be...

Class act Simon Hoggart S ome television programmes work, some don't. Some make you long for the next episode, others make you decide that would be a good night to go to the...

Parisian novice Robin Oakley I t was the perfect spring morning in Paris. The rabbits on the Porte Maillot roundabout were safely back in their burrows. The sun was shining....

Great news Taki H New York appiness is returning to the Bagel after a Southampton, Long Island, weekend of tennis and shooting, and receiving a telephone call from Sebastian...

Fragile harmony Jeremy Clarke F or a home multip., , m 1 use a scaffolding pole filled with concrete. Doing bicepcurls with it one day. I accidentally knocked a hole in the...

Embracing fatalism Aidan Hartley M Laikipia eanwhile, back at the ranch, it's been torrid. A leopard disembowelled 18 ducks. Elephants ravaged the vegetable garden. Hector,...

Beyond the pale Petronella Wyatt I was watching The Forsyte Saga on Sunday. Only for the rape scene, mind you. It was billed in the newspapers as a sensational piece of sexual...

AS a young man in London, living in a damp garret in King's Cross, I used to go to Laytons, a musty yet sweet-smelling wine store under the station arches, where, in the days...

Deborah Ross OK, a confession. This is unusual for me, I admit, as I'm not into confessions. As a rule, I always try to lie my way out of trouble. Me? Smoking again? Don't be...

Sebastian Deckker IT IS surprising that these days there are no sites on a Monopoly board further west than Park Lane; indeed, some of the locations are positively...

Sue Mott THE Vikings finished raiding us in about 1016. It was felt at the time that they'd had enough of strapping on those silly horn helmets that Norwegians wear at World...

Q. I must correct a mistake in your column of 6 April. When I arrived in Oxford as an 18-year-old. I was astonished to observe the confusion that was occasioned among my new...