The storming of McDonald's M rs Thatcher repeatedly rejected de- mands by the Labour Party for an exten- sion of the inquiry into the sacking of Colin Wallace, the former army...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 REDS AND WHITES T here is a similarity, depicted on our cover this week,...

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Mr De Klerk crosses the Rubicon while Mrs Thatcher halts at the Elbe NOEL MALCOLM W e are living in momentous times. One of the last remaining countries to be built on the...

CHARLES MOORE S almon Rushdie's defence of himself, published in the latest Independent on Sunday, was dignified and clear. It made me feel ashamed that because I so disliked...

Stephen Handelman reports on Mr Gorbachev's bold attempt to remove the Communist Party's monopoly of political power Masco w EARLIER this month, in the town of Gorky, a...

Stephen Robinson detects no sign of democracy emerging in the new South Africa Cape Town LAST Saturday night's performance of Fidelio at the Nico Malan opera house in Cape...

Hacking for adventure THE hero of an adventure which has just been giving the American press, not to mention the United States De- partment of Justice, something to talk about...

Mark Almond feels that reformed communists do not make good judges THE YEAR 1990 promises to be a vintage one for show-trials. (Even we in Britain are promised a few.) The...

James Bowman on how the United States might knock some noughts of its budget Washington 'A BILLION here, a billion there; pretty soon you're talking about real money.' The wit...

THE great libel case of "Parnell v. Walter," in which the plaintiff claimed £100,000 damages from the Times for the well-known statements about the forged letters, came to a...

David Barchard sees the Turkish middle class alarmed by Islamic revivalism Istanbul 'COME to yourselves, oh Muslims. Be men not mice. Muslims are men. Who are the dirty...

Ross Clark meets a minister who wishes to return to the country he helps 'govern' IT IS rare to end an interesting visit to an organisation with the hope that it will soon be...

Michael Cullup reports on a battle to save newts at the expense of people WYMONDHAM is a market town in Norfolk which is cut into two parts by the All trunk-road between...

Timothy Raison argues that something can be done about the disasters of family breakdown The Prime Minister, among others, has been putting the spotlight more and more on...

Anwer Bati finds the liberal thinkers of Britain more fundamentalist than the Muslims 'I'M not talking to you any more because of the way Muslims treat women,' said a woman...

Christopher Howse explores some of the wilder byways of the Dictionary of National Biography IN THE words of the obituary notice of Geoffrey Madan intended for the Times but...

those who control newspapers must learn to accept criticism in good part NEWSPAPERS love to go for people but are liable to become paranoid the instant they are subjected to...

THE rest-home for old jokes which serves the Financial Times for a diary column has found a distinguished inmate. This is Saki's joke, from his short story 'Reginald on...

WHAT Nigel Lawson wanted from his new job — so he told me last month, as we stood in the pouring rain, searching for taxis — was a car and a driver. I hope that Barclays de...

I SHALL not, after all, be in contempt of Mr Justice Denis Henry's court at South- wark if I tell you that, when I last heard, the chippies were still in there. It had needed...

Time of reckoning, as a cold wind blows down Lombard Street CHRISTOPHER FILDES I t is a bad time of year in Lombard Street. South-westerly gales screech from Lloyds down to...

Sir: Paul Johnson is quite right to be suspicious of the cosy coteries of mutual backscratchers that dominate the London literary world and of their unhealthy influ- ence on the...

Sir: Travel restrictions may have been lifted in Czechoslovakia but a visit to Britain is still out of the reach of most young Czechs, who are unable to raise enough foreign...

Sir: Norman Davies (.. . . now uses Rus- sian stamps', 20 January) considers stamp catalogues the 'main culprits' in helping empires to reinforce their claims, in the eyes of...

as a tax on real property it could overcome this by extend- ing value-added tax on the construction and resale of dwelling houses, so removing present anomalies. Peter J....

Sir: The excellent article by Michael Trend on the Government's proposed legislation on embryo research (`Before I formed thee in the belly . . .', 20 January), failed to point...

Sir: The writer of your interesting article on the inheritance tax (Leading article, 3 February) did not mention one point that is, that if you leave your money to one of the...

Sir: Grateful as I am to Ronald Hingley for the warning 'about British Russia-fanciers' in his review of my Pasternak (3 February), I must point out that Sergei Koteliansky,...

Sir: Mr David Astor (Letters 23/30 Decem- ber) obviously thinks that everyone shares his contempt for the delightful writings by Mr Wallace Arnold of Afore Ye Go. For many years...

Sir: Credit where credit is due. The phrase 'a phallocentric cockocracy' quoted in John Gross's review (29 January) belongs to Gary Taylor's fantasy feminist. It has never been...

Goodbye to all that Ferdinand Mount THE GRAND FAILURE: THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF COMMUNISM IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY by Zbigniew Brzezinski Macdonald, £12.95, pp.278 OUT OF THE...

Peter Levi THE HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY, VOLUME II: SOCRATES AND BEYOND by Luciano De Crescenzo Picador, £12.95, pp.190 A lthough I remember reviewing the first volume of...

Sara Maitland CLEOPATRA: HISTORIES, DREAMS AND DISTORTIONS by Lucy Hughes-Hallett Bloomsbury, £16.95, pp.338 T his book is an instance of a growing genre, somewhere between...

Mark Illis IN TRANSIT by Mavis Gallant Faber, £12.99, pp.229 M avis Gallant's characters, fathers and sons, lovers, husbands and wives, are hopelessly incompatible. They are...

Peter Fuller REPORTED SIGHTINGS: ART CHRONICLES 19574987 by John Ashbery Carcanet, f25, pp.417 I t is a pity that Oscar Wilde's dialogue, 'The Critic as Artist', is so little...

Harriet Waugh TALES OF THE CITY, MORE TALES OF THE CITY, FURTHER TALES OF THE CITY: AN OMNIBUS by Armistead Maupin Chatto & Windus, f14.95, pp.768 SURE OF YOU by Armistead...

Philip Glazebrook DESPERATE JOURNEYS, ABANDONED SOULS by Edward Leslie Macmillan, .£/6.95, pp.586 E dward Leslie's compilation of stories of shipwreck, marooning, calamity...

David Caute LOYALTIES:'A SON'S MEMOIR by Carl Bernstein Macmillan, £14.95, pp.254 G " Why did you join the Party?" I asked her by the pool in Miami.' Carl Bernstein was...

A farce that clamours for an epigram: A sanctimonious sheep and a randy ram Perform in court. The more ferocious beast Gets gelded, and the milder one is fleeced. Tups mounting...

Fiction: Incline Our Hearts, by A. N. Wilson, Penguin, £4.99 Scandal, by Shusaku Endo, Penguin, £4.99 The Walled Garden, by Philip Glazebrook, Flamingo, £3.99 A Disaffection, by...

Architecture James MacLaren 1853-1890: Arts and Crafts Architect (RIBA Heinz Gallery, till 24 February) Pioneers of Modernism Gavin Stamp Vi sitors to The Spectator's...

Grand illusionist Hilary Mantel C reeds rejected in early life sneak back into the minds of the middle-aged unfinished business, nagging away. Some- times faith is readmitted;...

Prince Igor (Covent Garden) All worth it Rodney Milnes A great deal depended on this produc- tion. Both Jeremy Isaacs, who is starting to be seen as the Hard Man of the arts...

Elisabeth Vellacott (New Art Centre, till 17 February) Hugh Buchanan (Francis Kyle, till 1 March) Softly spoken Giles Auty L ast week I wrote with regret about the sad...

A Clockwork Orange 2004 (Barbican) Hollow drum Christopher Edwards D efending himself against accusations that his 1962 novel celebrates violence, Anthony Burgess points out,...

Rover's return Peter Watson W hen James Christie started his venerable firm, in the days of 18th-century new money, his rooms were the Tramp of their day, where the...

Pure yuck Wendy Cope L ast week I made a few comments about the extraordinary things that people will laugh at. Thursday evening saw the first episode of a new Comic Strip...

Tinseltown tough guys Ta k i Athens ack in the good old days when Holly- wood was run by Eastern European Jews who may have been illiterate but knew the difference between...

Below the belt Jeffrey Bernard I received a letter from a woman living in the Isle of Wight yesterday asking me to help her raise the money for an eight-year- old boy to...

Dad's the word Zenga Longmore L ast Friday at Boko's, Iceline, the mother of a noisy eight-month-old boy, gave us all quite a jar. With a bleary look in her eye, she announced...

DEAR old St Valentine is coming round again, but I think I have practically ex- hausted suitable heart-connotated dishes. The only new to me goodies I have found mentioned are...

Poet's night Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1611 you were asked to envisage future nights devoted to celeb- rating poets other than Burns and to provide a description of the...

Czechpoint Raymond Keene J ust as the Czechs are rediscovering their national identity after decades of Stalinist enslavement I have been sent a most timely book which covers...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers English Dictionary — ring the word 'Dictionary') for the first three correct solutions...

A poem, please, using the following rhyme-words in this order: company, luna- cy, poke, joke, asserted, converted; down, town, another, brother, succumbed, plumbed, try, eye....

man who listens to Reason is lost' con- tinues as 20, 23, 7A, 19, 30, 14 81. 1A. Winners: Dr Margaret Wylde, Stowmarket (£20); Keith S. Burton, Harrogate; John Roberts-Jones ,...