My holiday reading list this year was both accidental and catholic. Usually I plan some months in advance, but this year I managed to wolf down my summer reading list before stepping on a plane. Consequently I went to bed with Joanna Trollope, woke up with Philip Roth, had an affair with Tom Bower’s Conrad
Tony Blair — remember him? — was better at diagnosis than cure. ‘I think most people would say that in virtually every aspect of their life things are better than they were 30 or 40 years ago,’ he told the Sunday Telegraph in November 2005. Tony Blair — remember him? — was better at diagnosis
He who would read newspapers must expect to spend his days in the darkest despair, for they contain nothing but war, murder and medical advice. Popular wisdom, however, tells us that every cloud has a silver lining: though my experience of life leads me to conclude that, in general, the relationship between clouds and silver
What would Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, the coolest of heads, have made of poor William Shawcross’s overwrought emotional plea that we must stay on in Iraq as a kind of act of faith (‘Britain must stay in Iraq’, 25 August)? A menace of our making Sir: What would Field Marshal the Duke of
