Alasdair Palmer 
Exhibitions: Tiziano
‘When Titian paints eyes,’ observed Eugène Delacroix, who spent a lifetime admiring, studying and copying the Venetian artist, ‘they are lit with the fire of life.’ The truth of Delacroix’s… Read more
Medieval mystery
Medieval castles are generally dark and forbidding places that look as if they were built to prove the proposition that ‘form follows function’: the function was to be impregnable, and… Read more
Restoration tragedy
Alasdair Palmer questions the ill-conceived makeover of Chartres cathedral which robs us of the sense of passing time that is part of its fascination and mystery Should old buildings look… Read more
Medieval frescoes
Rome contains many hidden treasures, but the most remarkable of the lot is concealed on the Caelian Hill, above the Colosseum, in the medieval monastery of Santi Quattro Coronati. It’s… Read more
Paradise regained
Alasdair Palmer marvels at a series of Veronese frescoes at Palladio’s Villa Barbaro It has included repairing the roof and strengthening the walls, as well as redecorating the interior, and… Read more
Rewarding rubbish
If you went on holiday to Italy this year, you may have come back with a plate, a mug or a jug — an item or two of the painted… Read more
Why the coalition’s police reforms will fail
The Home Office has radical plans, but they won’t come to much, says Alasdair Palmer. Less money and fewer paid officers will inevitably mean more crime Last month when Theresa… Read more
Pacific Heights
‘God created the world in seven days… San Francisco took a little longer.’ You can forgive San Franciscans a little blasphemy — well, you sort of have to, because it’s… Read more
Meeting Professor Torture
Guantanamo Bay has just marked its fifth anniversary. John Yoo was instrumental in setting up the prison camp which the normally solidly pro-American Daily Mail has called ‘the sort of… Read more
Saddam’s trial shouldn’t be fair
When Mohammed al-Ureybi, the presiding judge at the trial of Saddam Hussein, started reading out that the court sentenced Saddam to death for killing 148 inhabitants of the Shiite village… Read more
How Leonardo did it
Alasdair Palmer talks to the French artist who has discovered the secret of the Master’s technique How did he do it? Among the many great unanswered questions about Leonardo da… Read more
Life, liberty and terrorists
‘When it comes to the British courts,’ Charles Clarke insists, ‘I am a perpetual optimist.’ Which is fortunate, because he needs to be. We met on the day the Law… Read more
The American way of torture
Alasdair Palmer on how the White House is trying to defeat Senator McCain’s anti-torture Bill America is starting to get anxious again about its use of ‘aggressive interrogation’. The more… Read more
Is torture always wrong?
The officers who pumped seven bullets into Jean Charles de Menezes as he sat in a Tube train in Stockwell station on 22 July believed he was a suicide-bomber about… Read more
Small is beautiful
The Cambridge Illuminations, the Fitzwilliam Museum’s exhibition of mediaeval manuscripts, wasn’t very crowded when I visited last Sunday. The show comprises principally images of devotion, damnation and prayer, conceived and… Read more
Railtrack’s show trial
Alasdair Palmer says the charges against Railtrack’s Gerald Corbett are the cynical prelude to a law on corporate killing The families of the four people who were killed in the… Read more
Latest blogs
- Lee Rigby named as victim of Woolwich attack Sebastian Payne
- The friendless Help-to-Buy scheme Isabel Hardman
- Nothing to do with Islam? Douglas Murray
- Why it’s not the 1990s all over again for the Tories James Forsyth
- You’re going to lose. It is only you against many. Alex Massie
- PM avoids knee-jerk response to Woolwich attack Isabel Hardman
- David Cameron’s statement on the Woolwich attack The Spectator
