It is said that hard cases make bad law. So does bad law make hard cases. Such a case was heard last week at Oxford Crown Court when Robert Reif was sentenced to 15 months...

Now for the good news • • • Ferdinand Mount Emma and Dominic have been scrubbing floors in the Westminster Hospital. Dominic is 14 and Emma is 16. They are too young to go...

The Department of Trade investigation into the Peachey Property Corporation makes jolly good reading and is well worth the £4 which it costs at Her Majesty's Stationery Office....

Press feeding Auberon Waugh Two months ago an invitation arrived at the office of Private Eye from Africa's only satirical magazine, Le Politicien of Dakar, asking the editor...

Victoria Schofield Islamabad Judgement in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's appeal against the death sentence came swiftly. It took only a few minutes for the Chief Justice of the Supreme...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington The China rage has swept America with only slightly less force than when Nixon went courting in Peking. Washington brought forth statements on...

Richard West Salisbury It is a chastening experience for us journalists in Rhodesia to re-read Phillip Knightley's excellent book on war correspondents, ironically entitled The...

Edward Marston Berlin The effect of Holocaust on the German people has been cathartic. For the first time in the 34 years since the end of the Nazi mass extermination programme...

Charles Douglas-Home With Ayatollah Khomeini back in Iran, there are a number of questions which may now receive answers. What, in practice, does he mean by Islamic government?...

Sam White Paris It would of course be misleading to compare the , action of the French in providing a constraint-free refuge for the Ayatollah Khomeini with the action of the...

Jo Grimond 'You want a motor car?' 'Yes — and to get rid of my old pony and trap.' 'Here's your car but you must keep your old pony and trap as well.' 'But this car hasn't...

Roger Berthoud The EEC is in a mess. As the current wrangling over farm prices in Brussels emphasises, the common agricultural policy has become more and more of a fiction,...

Sir John Lubbock has made out that ants do not recognise ants of the same nest by any sign or pass-word, though he thinks it impossible that in the case of nests containing...

Christopher Booker Last week I argued that most people nowadays, while supposing themselves to be hard-headed rationalists who would not dream of believing a thing until it was...

Mismanaging money Nicholas Davenport Stagnation in the gilt-edged market is much worse than that in any strike-bound hospital, for demoralisation has set in and this is not to...

Sir: As a local government officer, I was particularly interested to see Christopher Booker's article in your issue of 27 January on why people strike, as !believe that he has...

Sir: Peregrine Worsthorne prudently left for Australia just before he discussed my children in the Spectator (Notebook, 13 January). My wife has therefore been unable to hit him...

Sir: The answer to Mark Nelson's question (3 February) is yes, I have read Homage to Catalonia and I am familiar with the distinction made by Orwell between the POUM and and...

Sir: There are a number of pointstin your article about Times Newspapers (3 February: `Hard Times') that need clarification. Firstly, you say that it was a mistake of...

Sir: As an old-established reader of your journal, I have read Christopher Booker's articles on social and cultural issues in your columns in recent months with general pleasure...

Richard Cobb Gracchus Babeuf: The First Revolutionary Communist R.B. Rose (Arnold £12.95) Was Babeuf a Communist? What sort of a Communist was he: a backward - looking one...

Taki Theodoracopulos Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis Stephen Birmingham (Gollancz £5.50) Stephen Birmingham is the American version of Willi Frischauer. Like the late...

Alan Gibson John Wesley and his World John Pudney (Thames and Hudson £4.50) It is difficult to write a good life of John Wesley, as it must be of anyone who has produced his...

Benny Green The Randolph Caldecott Treasury Ed Elizabeth Billington (Warne £12.40) There are a few creative artists who penetrate the cerebral defences before any awareness is...

Alan Watkins Mr Secretary of State Brian Sedgemore (Quartet £4.95) The political novel, especially perhaps the English political novel, is a notoriously tricky genre. Trollope...

Paul Ableman A Field of Scarlet Poppies Jennifer Dawson (Quartet E4.95) 'When you went to the refrigerator to get out some milk you saw that two bottles of barley wine had gone...

John McEwen Memorial exhibitions of artists who have died young are always rather private events, more consciously aimed at an art-world audience than would normally be the...

No heroes Ted Whitehead Blue Collar (Gate Two, Russell Square) Things are looking up. It's only 25 years since the last American film about the subject which consumes most...

Lutyens rediscovered Gavin Stamp 'Who is this guy?' was the surprised but understandable reaction of a visitor to the Museum of Modern Art in New York who, blundering past...

Survivors Richard ingrams Some readers may have formed the erroneous impression that I do not regard my responsibilities as the Spectator's television critic seriously enough....

Hillbillies Taki Beverly Hills In case anyone is wondering where all the rich Iranians have gone now that the Ayatollah has returned and is about to cut off the arms of those...

Going to pot Jeffrey Bernard I feel tremendously saddened by the disgusting and dangerous epidemic that is sweeping the country and which has struck no fewer than nine out of...

Journalists Geoffrey Wheatcroft One of life's regular amusements is the monthly arrival of the Journalist, the organ of the National Union of Journalists. This Paper...