Right! Let's go with today's complete novel, which is entitled Going Out Live. Your name is Roger Softleigh. You are a highly paid executive. You are also late for work. As the story starts, you are running out of your house down the garden path. You...

The reality is that the treatment of security is similar to that received when travelling from Heathrow Terminal One: hand luggage is X-rayed and selective searches are made of individuals' clothing. Large items of luggage are stowed at the doorways ...

This is the model now being offered to the Unionists and Nationalists on the island of Ireland. Twenty five years of killing - and a history of conflict going back centuries - provides ample evidence that there can be no lasting peace as long as ther...

Although all-party, the other active members have kindly put up in recent years with a Tory chairman (myself) a Tory director, as full-time executive officer, and more recently a Tory president, Sir Edward Heath. The nationwide Europhile "constituenc...

Despite this, it is wrong to claim that Sierra Leone is on the brink of following Liberia into ruin. The government has been making progress in restoring peace and stability to the streets of Freetown, but faced with rebels who continue to intimidate...

There is no previous bloody history of ethnic conflict in Sierra Leone. Until 1991 it was a mostly peaceful, if ill-governed, country in desperate economic straits. The origins of the civil war are to be seen in the unscrupulous banditry and asset-st...

In a subsequent international meeting, Stalin, faced with a new set of representatives from the UK, slyly inquired: "What has happened to the Conservatives - have they taken to the hills?" "No," came the prompt reply, "they've taken to the City." Per...

And yet yesterday, the Unionists were behaving as if the Times had uncovered a dark and sinister plot. Do they and their Tory diehard allies really think that, in the end, a Conservative government dependent on Unionist and Tory diehard support, woul...

Today's news that the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals' working group on admissions may be shifting policy is welcome. It makes good sense to set up a system where applications are only made when exam results are known. This would entail ...

Primo Levi wrote of the day when he, an inmate of Auschwitz, heard that the Allies were advancing and that an end to the Nazi Holocaust might be in sight. Fifty years ago there was a purpose in the world to stand up to such evil. This week we have be...

It is odd that the British once had a reputation for diplomatic subtlety. Going into the 1996 Inter-Governmental Conference with a declared policy of vetoing every proposal that has constitutional significance is hardly a good preparation for bargain...

We believe that the limited inquiries that have taken place have left unanswered a whole series of vital questions. Why did the intelligence services fail to prevent the bombing despite constant surveillance of terrorist groups? Why were specific war...

Second, the use of anonymous sources - "it is understood" - to claim that I have entered into secret undertakings with Tony Blair's office in respect of Clause IV is damaging and disturbing. Whatever view we take in the debate, the Labour leader and ...

During last week's commemorative services for the millions who died during the Nazi Holocaust, we heard the words "never again" repeated many times. These important words become hollow when we realise that in 50 years we have not learnt any lessons f...

The National Lottery has obviously "hit the spot"; and one of the results seems likely to be unprecedented funding for projects to mark the millenarian watershed five years hence. A great many millennium-related projects, large and small, are already...

The same principle underlay French transport planning for many years. As a result, autoroutes were built with minimal planning delay and high-speed TGV tracks were driven across open countryside. Generous compensation payments eased the way, and Fran...