4 MAY 1985, Page 24

Wrong Spectator

Sir: Your new layout is ugly, loud and a waste of paper. I do not think it will help to sell your magazine unless your new target audience is philistine cretins. Did you pick this trick up from the American Spectator? I know that it is much enamoured of little introductions above articles — these are perfectly suited to that Reaganite rag but not as a backdrop for Messrs Waugh, Welch and Bernard. Let the Australians keep their convict manners to themselves.

Baer Pettit

Trinity College, Cambridge