Alan Judd 
A Delicate Truth, by John le Carré - review
John Le Carré is one of a select group of novelists whose vivid and internally coherent imaginative worlds are so recognisable that their names have become adjectives — Dickensian, Wodehousian, … Read more
Hasty exit strategy
For years after the rug was pulled from under it, the British Empire — with a quarter of the globe, the largest the world has known — seemed an unfashionable… Read more
A narrow escape
C.J. Sansom is deservedly famous for his Shardlake crime novels, featuring a 16th-century lawyer on the fringes of the court. But he has also written two successful novels with 20th-century… Read more
An exhausting mixture of boredom and concentration
The wartime code-breaking successes of Bletchley Park are deservedly well known. The story of how they decrypted German and Japanese codes, most famously the Enigma, has been the subject of… Read more
The English inquisition
Early on in this fascinating history Stephen Alford makes an important point: because Elizabeth I and the settlement between monarchy, church and state survived, because the threat of foreign invasion… Read more
Downton for adults
For five weeks from 24 August BBC2 is doing a brave thing: serialising Parade’s End, Ford Madox Ford’s quartet of first world war novels. Arguably the first great modernist English… Read more
Mission accomplished
Two shots killed Osama bin Laden, one in his chest and one in his left eye. ‘Two taps’ is standard practice for close-quarter shootings — firing twice takes virtually no… Read more
Ways of making men talk
Eric Rosenbach is a former academic who is now deputy assistant secretary of defence in Washington. Aki Peritz used to work for the CIA and now advises the Third Way… Read more
Motoring: Snow patrol
The American poet Robert Frost wrote memorably of pausing on his pony in the snow and looking longingly into woods that were ‘lovely, dark, and deep’, regretting that he had… Read more
Motoring: Value for money
The concept of cheap and cheerful appeals for the obvious reasons: the prospect of something-for-(nearly)-nothing; the assumption that it does exactly what it says on the tin; the lack of… Read more
Bookends: The year of living dangerously
Most people who recall 1976 do so for its appallingly hot summer, when parks turned brown and roads melted. Some will also remember that the celebrity culture throve then as… Read more
Motoring: Fashion statement
In The Spectator of 27 August I reviewed the new Range Rover Evoque despite not having driven it; a narcissistic exercise to see how accurately I could predict my own… Read more
Motoring: Extreme driving
One week, two convertibles. The first, a 40-year-old held together by rust, with doors so warped I’ve taken them off, the windscreen secured by baler twine to keep out the… Read more
Motoring: Question of speed
I should have used the Discovery 3 to tow an ancient and heavy horse-trailer loaded with well over a ton of logs. Its V6 direct-injection diesel, with plenty of low-end… Read more
The human factor
Accounts of the secret world usually fall into one of two camps, the authoritative or the popular. The authoritative — such as Christopher Andrew’s history of MI5 and Keith Jeffery’s… Read more
Motoring: Feel-good factor
Feel-good factor The sloping rear roof-line, especially in white, prompted comparisons with a squashed fag packet. It’s a profile that’s supposed to appeal to younger owners. When I first saw… Read more
The ne plus Ultra
The story of Bletchley Park, MI6’s second world war code-breaking operation, has grown with the telling since the early 1970s accounts — although, as Briggs points out, Bletchley’s first public… Read more
Motoring: Simple love
I recently met a gentleman of Dorset who kindly showed me his car collection. It included an Austin Champ, the Jeep look-alike in service with the military 1954–66. Originally intended… Read more
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