The latest culture as recommended by our staff

New Sondheim: enjoy it while stocks last

Gerald Kaufman is enthralled by the first Sondheim premiere in 14 years. A minor work Road Show may be, but it is still worth much more than anyone else’s musicals

The law applies to Damian Green, too

Rod Liddle is reluctant to join the journalistic herd in its unqualified outrage at the Tory MP’s arrest. But it is certainly time to put the police under the microscope

After Baby P: the crisis in child foster care

Mary Wakefield talks to a courageous woman who blew the whistle on the deep systemic failures in the foster care service — and whose only reward was to be hounded and vilified

The global force behind Mumbai’s agony is in our midst

Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi say that LET — the Army of the Righteous — is a worldwide Islamist organisation which is well-established in Britain. The Mumbai atrocities are further proof that the march of Islamic extremism is the central fact of our time

‘They treat me more like a devil than a god’

Lloyd Evans finds that Bernard-Henri Lévy is not the ageing French dandy of caricature but a serious intellectual with views on everything from Barack Obama to the Muslim veil

Want to cut taxes? First cut spending. Here’s how

After a week of clamorous competition between the parties over tax cuts, Fraser Nelson offers a guide to paying for them: a programme of spending cuts that would preserve core services but shave off the fat of the Brown years. All that is needed is political will

I don’t miss Italy. The dolce vita is a myth

Lisa Hilton looks back on three years exile in Milan and rejoices in the bounty of Waitrose and a postal service that is at least halfway efficient. Italy at its best is a hologram

Sarko’s voodoo doll hissy fit tells you everything

The French President’s strop is more eloquent than any policy or speech, says Celia Walden. He is a pint-sized de Gaulle regularly made to look a fool by his wife

This charming man: an audience with the Gover

Fraser Nelson meets the shadow schools secretary and finds him bracingly radical and disarmingly polite: a recipe for success in government

How Dave and George can avoid a terrible rift

Andrew Tyrie says that root-and-branch reform of the Treasury will be needed when Brown is gone, including weekly minuted meetings. Past friendship is not enough