Gil Roman becomes a leading figure expressing everyone's anxieties in his solo to Mozart's

Gil Roman becomes a leading figure, expressing everyone's anxieties in his solo to Mozart's Masonic Funeral Music, but is often funny, too. Gregor Metzger, shaven-headed and lasciviously smiling, has more sinister interventions. Among others brought into prominence, Kathryn Bradney's virtuoso solo is passionately vivid. A video-montage of Donn in Nijinsky, Clown of God proves unbearably poignant.The dancers of Bejart's Ballet Lausanne look marvellous in Gianni Versace's mostly figure-hugging, stylishly inventive white and black costumes, with occasional dashes of colour and glamour.

At the opening gala, Elton John and Queen joined them on stage to accompany the finale and received decorations from France's Minister of Culture.Besides his idiosyncratic Coppelia, Petit brought a recent creation and some new stars to the Palais Garnier with his Ballet National de Marseille. As beautifully as Maryinsky ballerina Altynai Asylmuratova danced Swanilda, I thought her not ideally suited to the artificial flirtations of the first half, but entirely charming later. Luigi Bonino, replacing the injured Petit the night I went, brings not quite the same authority to this extremely lithe, suave Coppelius (a cross between Astaire and Chevalier) but has wit, humour and style.Petit's other offering was The Leopard, an adaptation of Tomasi di Lampedusa's great novel. Inevitably, much detail gets lost, but the main characters hold their fascination and the historical background is sufficiently sketched in. Orchestral music by seven Italian opera composers (plus a harsh Sicilian chorus) makes an apt score, expressively played by the Orchestre Colonne under David Garforth.A prologue shows Don Fabrice first in his emblematic character as the leopard, with soft but commanding gestures that become a motif at crucial points. Konstantin Zaklinsky, another dancer from the Maryinsky, fills this role with power, dignity and passion.

Asylmuratova embodies three aspects of his ideal woman: the prostitute fulfilling his physical needs, the icy star who visits his dream, and finally Death bringing him peace. Luisa Spinatelli's handsome designs let the action move quickly from scene to scene, and Petit's choreography is as adroitly inventive as ever.John Percival. Gary Hume and Fiona Rae, showing together at the Saatchi Gallery, have all the right credentials for an exhibition at this the temple of fashionable new art. Both are in their mid-thirties and part of the Goldsmiths generation who graduated in the late Eighties; both participated in "Freeze", the now legendary exhibition staged by Damien Hirst in 1988, and both have been short-listed for, but failed to win, the Turner Prize Perfect pedigrees for inclusion in the Saatchi stable. Prior approval is not required under the Labour amendment where it is not "reasonably practicable".Labour should not make obeisance to the judicial hierarchy. It envisages that there should be three commissioners for the whole of England and Wales, who shall be High Court judges or above. Liberal Democrat peers seek to require chief officers of police to receive the prior authorisation of a circuit judge before they cause entry to be made into people's homes and offices for the purpose of planting bugs. The Labour amendment was also passed with Liberal-Democrat support, but it is far less satisfactory.

Sir: How welcome it was that 44 Labour peers chose to ignore the advice of their own front bench on Monday evening and decided to vote for the Liberal Democrat amendment to the Police Bill, as well as for their own ("Howard attacks bugging 'shambles' ", 21 January). Thatcherism redrew the economic boundary; Labour accepts that. It is in the interests of British firms individually and British business collectively that political life should move away from the spite and confrontation epitomised by Michael Heseltine's characterisation of a pro-business and anti-business divide. Labour's business education is incomplete.But that is why Sir Christopher Harding, Robert Ayling et al must turn on their accusers and say: it is now that Labour's modernisers need all the help they can get, not in some hole-in-the-corner fashion, but up front. Both American parties are pro-business.The Labour Party is not the Democratic Party - yet. Messrs Blair and Brown have - yet - to be tested in the crucible of office, fending off party demands while fiscal contingencies bubble mercilessly away. Down in certain constituencies the red flag flutters and attitudes towards profit-taking and enterprise are still antediluvian.

For those who like to model things this way capitalists - whether Anglo-Saxon or Rhenish - will tend to support the party of property and disdain the party of high taxation. But must the party of the left be an enemy of property or the party of high income tax? That certainly was not the guise adopted by Shadow Chancellor Brown on Monday. True, but he has now been a professional Tory politician for far too many years, and his rant will rightly have been found offensive by many practising money-makers, who think they can make up their own minds about which party they feel loyal to.Those who consider the distribution of economic power within Britain's private sector peculiar may say that the historical connection between directors, Rotary Clubs, chambers of trade and local Tory associations is fixed. His attitude is redolent of an old-fashioned statism - business people are naifs, children in matters of policy and politics who need the tutelage of a professional. Most businessmen probably prefer the idea of a Conservative government But their support should not be taken for granted. It is probably true that the "social consciousness" of members of Germany's Mittelstand is higher, and that Italy's small and medium enterprises are much more diverse in political allegiance, but evidence is growing that Britain's "business community" cannot be locked up in the blue column. But the madness of Labour's turn to the left in the Eighties allowed the Conservatives to lodge the impression that business support for Labour was akin to the proverbial turkey voting for the festive season. But only blind prejudice would deny that Tony Blair has sloughed much of Labour's historical skin.