cern the fact that at the present moment the Whole of the British Constitution is at the mercy of a snap vote in the House of Com- mons, the matter, we can assure them, is of...

The Home Secretary has informally made it clear enough that he has little intention of accepting the major recommendations of the Wootton Committee's report on cannabis— a...

The Commonwealth Conference opened at Marlborough House, after a torchlight proces- sion by 1,000 Biafrans in London. Twenty people described as writers were expelled from...

AUBERON WAUGH Last year's Christmas recess was a time of un- paralleled government intrigue and acrimony. This year's has provided breathing space for ministers to proceed...

INDUSTRY ANGUS MAUDE, MP Mrs Castle's attempt to steal some of the Tories' clothes, and to impose a compromise set of trade union reforms which satisfies no one, is of no...

ITALY ELIZABETH WISKEMANN Rome—The political situation in Italy is mar- vellously unstable. A government of the Centro-Sittistra or centre-left has just been re- instated with...

AMERICA WILLIAM JANEWAY Last week Sir Denis Brogan confessed himself able to identify only one event of 'any general interest' which made news in Britain during the past year:...

DEFENCE LAURENCE MARTIN There are two military balances in the Middle East today, that between the super-powers and that of the local states. The two are inextricably...

From the 'Spectator', 9 January 1869—A curious illustration of the violence of the Protestant-ascen- dancy feeling has occurred at Limerick. At a meet- ing in Limerick, a Roman...

THE CONSTITUTION QUINTIN HOGG, MP When I made my speech to a PEST meeting at last year's Conservative conference about con- stitutional reform I had hardly expected a friendly...

J. W. M. TIIOMPSON Every air passenger takes a calculated risk when he makes his journey (as does every motorist), but the case of the uninvolved by- stander killed in an air...

PERSONAL COLUMN J. H. PLUMB We all educate ourselves more profoundly than we realise and we do it mainly in our youth. 1 was forcefully reminded of this in shifting a large...

THE PRESS BILL GRUNDY You don't have to know the language, the old song said. But it helps all the same, was the implication. Which is why 1 wish I had the Latin, because then...

TELEVISION STUART 1100ll Few things in the television business are more exciting, , 1 find, than to spend a few hours (as I did today) looking at old newsfilm or going through...

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN One beneficial result of the intrusion of the ?IB into the groves of Academe has been the opening up of many questions about the present and future of...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS What hope is there the Commonwealth May yet survive in common health? Since Mr Trudeau seems to be A man for bright society; Gorton as well, and Lee Kwan Yew...

P. T. BAUER What holds back the underdeveloped (i.e. poor) countries is the people living there. Grudging, incomplete, but nevertheless clear recognition of this truth (which...

of Constantinople from the Eve of the Turkish Conquest to the Greek War of Independence Steven Runciman (cur 55s) Decline and fall PATRICK COLLINSON `Go amongst the Greeks,...

ROBERT CONQUEST Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom Andrei D. Sakharov (Andrd Deutsch 25s) Academician Sakharov, the Soviet nuclear physicist, earlier this year...

First fruits BARRY COLE The Scarecrow Man Christopher Bray (Heine- mann 25s) The Grasshopper Su Walton (Peter Davies 30s) Paiting Off Julian Moynahan (Heinemann 30s) An...

SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER It is one of the pleasures of age to realise that at the Battle of the Nile one was there all the while. Reading Pat Barr's admirable study of the Meiji...

JOHN ROWAN WILSON The Black Death Philip Ziegler (Collins 36s) The reservoir of infection from which the great plague of the fourteenth century took its origin is thought to...

ROY STRONG Buckingham Palace John Harris, Geoffrey de Bellaigue and Oliver Millar (Nelson 8 gns) The English House through Seven Centuries Olive Cook (Nelson 7 gns) Great...

The Nett. Cambridge Modern History Volume XII edited by C. L. Mowat (cue 60s). The New CMH may have been slow in appearing, but it is fast in revising. Volume XII which came out...

STEPHEN GARDINER When I pass the Shell Centre or that squalid row of office blocks across the river from the Tate or some similar monstrosity, I invariably think, perhaps for...

Plantagenets please PENELOPE HOUSTON The Secret Life of an-American Wife (Rialto, 'X') 'It's 1183 and we're barbarians.' sings out Katharine Hepburn's Eleanor of Aquitaine in...

BALLET CLEMENT CRISP I imagine that controversy about the new Sleeping Beauty at Covent Garden will simmer for some time, but, for the record, I must here register my own...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT Being in the life business myself I can hardly wait for the publication of Mr Richard Cross- man's White Paper on national superannuation. Blast off is...

PORTFOLIO JOHN BULL The British Petroleum share price has been under some pressure this week, dropping 4s 3d to 137 s in early dealings last Monday. As this is one of my most...

Market report The nasty little break in Wall Street prices this 'week (pushing the Dow Jones index down 26 points to 926) has affected London senti- _Mint. Our own equivalent,...

brave enough to place the blame for our present `colour problem' squarely where it belongs— on the Race Relations. Bill and therefore on those of our legislators who promoted...

LETTERS From James Mouram, Martyn Snow, Anthony Daniels, Dame Margery Perham, E. S. lames, Roland Hall, Haro Hodson, T. Davy, C. G. C. Young, D. R. Myddelton, Robin Horton, F....

Sir: How can I resist the challenge of your lead- ing article in your issue of 27 December 'Lord Lugard is dead'? As Lugard's friend and bio- grapher I know that he is dead. But...

it, Mr . Raven (3 January)? Here are some numbers, .then. Assuming that there are four people to every coloured immigrant household, there are , about 300,000 such households in...

Eastern Nigeria and Biafra, I wish to thank you for your forthright leading article in your issue of 27 December 1968 and for your consistent efforts during the past year to...

(Letters, 3 January): Colonel Connolly McCausland was a Unionist before -he was Catholic. He was a convert. As he saw no reason to change his politics with his faith he remained...

Sir: Alas for Professor Brogan's jumping-off point for his 'Table talk' of 27 December: or rather for his reliance upon the accuracy of The Times. Although Garsington's...

bare- -faced reproof to Sir Denis Brogan (Letters, 27 December), starting a campaign to encourage slum English. England is surely vulgar enough already in all conscience....

Sir: The Pia report on university pay raises an issue that is of interest to all salary earners : that is, how is their work to be assessed? The PIB refuses to use...

1968) was, to my mind, the finest exposition yet presented in this coun- try of the case against the British government. Those of us who agree with him (and 1 think I can speak...

Sir : For some years now, scholars in Nigeria have been watching uneasily the attempts of Ibo historians to create Ibo pedigrees for the non- Ibo peoples who they feel should be...

Sir: Nicholas Davenport seems to think that as a result of 'current well-informed discussion .... gold is no longer revered except by Arab sheiks and French hoarders' (3...

Sir: We challenge Dr John Rowan Wilson's statement (13 December) that 'Vaccination and the development of antibacterial drugs have protected [man] against most of the...

JOHN WELLS Paris. Friday—Deadlock still reigns unbreak- able here in the Vietnam Peace War over the seating arrangements for the preliminary talks about talks about talks. At...

Trevor Grove reports : Walter Mitty never got round to being a Robin Day or a David Frost; competitors were invited to let the Mitty in them run riot in an excerpt from their...

COMPETITION Douglas Hurd and Andrew Osmond last year published a slick political thriller, Send Rim Victorious, which imagined Britain, in the late 'seventies, sending troops...

Across 1 Devonian direction to the proverbial young man (8) 5 Mother at sea gets pent up (6) 9 Reform gained a right for discharge system (8) 10 Rub up the wrong way half the...

PHILIDOR Black White (8 men) (8 men) C. G. S. Narayanan and T. S. Krishnamurthy (The Problemist, July 1968). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week....