travel restriction on New Year's Day has been widely interpreted as the first shot in Mr Wilson's general election campaign. For once there is no reason to doubt the con- sensus...

A Whitehall diary, 1969 AUBERON WAUGH Cabinet papers for 1969 would not normally be published until 1 January 2000. Judging, however, that the newspapers of that date will be...

Politicians and morality GEORGE GALE The inquest on Mary Jo Kopechne provides a useful occasion to consider the relation, if any, between politics and morality, a relation...

Business is business MARC ULLMANN Paris—When the five gunboats which left Cherbourg on Christmas night reached the port of Haifa six days later Gcneral Moshe Dayan, throwing...

Who cares about policy? ANTHONY KING Anthony King is Professor of Government at Essex University A few years ago it was all the rage to blame Britain's problems—especially the...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS Ring out the old, ring in the new. There's nothing very much else to do, The people's flag is purple puce. One wonders what can be the use Of taking polls of...

Not all that's news is fit to print R. A. CLINE People fear the power of the press as they fear the power of the trade unions. The musicians who refused to play with Benjamin...

J. W. M. THOMPSON So we are all conservationists now. The movement to protect and preserve the natural environment has gathered recruits, at a rate which recalls that...

Robert Odams RIP ROBIN PAGE Robert Odams' was the pen-name used by Robin Page, then an official of the Sup- plementary Benefits Commission, for his articles in the SPECTATOR...

The Duke's race war Captain THREADNEEDLE The Duke of Norfolk is on record—no racing record is ever superannuated—as say- ing that there would be steeplechasing at Ascot only...

Bleak prospect for the '70 tour CHRISTOPHER HOT LIS It is extremely odd that with all the fuss about the D'Oliveira case, Mr D'Oliveira's own book, which one might have thought...

From the 'Spectator', 8 January 1870—A cor- respondent of the Times draws a picture of the advantages offered by Tasmania to the emi- grant, which does not, we confess, strike...

Go boil a kettle, David JOHN ROWAN WILSON There used to be a standard scene in films about doctors, where the old family physi- cian was called in for an emergency confine-...

The new-time religion DENIS BROGAN Washington—In a recent number of Time magazine we learn that the rumour so cur- rent a few years ago that `God is dead' is dis- credited. He...

MARTIN SEYMOUR-SMITH Sherwood Anderson's moment of truth at the age of thirty-six is a legend. He was sit- ting in his paint factory in Elyria, Ohio, one afternoon in the...

HENRY TUBE The War of Time Alejo Carpentier (Gollancz 30s) Che Guevara's favourite novelist, we are told, was Alejo Carpentier. The choice—if we discount mere courtesy in one...

JOHN ROWAN WILSON Men in Groups Lionel Tiger (Nelson 50s) The Human Zoo Desmond Morris (Cape 35s) If the proper study of mankind is man, we are certainly hard at it these days....

STUART HOOD A History of the Scottish People: 1560- 1830 T. C. Smout (Collins 75s) Few societies can be so dominated by myths as are the Scots. There is the cluster of legend...

E. F. JACOB The Experienced Angler or Angling Im- proved Colonel Robert Venables with a testimonial letter from Isaac Walton (Antro- bus Press, 3 Clement's Inn, London wc2 40s)...

JOHN FLETCHER Wyndham Lewis Special Issue edited by William Cookson (Agenda, Autumn-Winter 1969-70, 21s) Interest in Wyndham Lewis seems to be re- viving. The publication of...

CHRISTOPHER LLOYD Admiral of the Fleet: The Life of Sir Charles Lanzhe Oliver Warner (Sidgwick and Jack- son 50s) Who ever heard of a First Sea Lord who cancelled an official...

PETER OPPENHEIMER Decision in Government Jeremy Bray, MP (Gollancz 60s) To Dr Bray, ex-ici and the Ministry of Technology, the machinery of economic policy seems barely...

Allied Intervention in Russia 1917-1920 John Bradley (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 55s). Had there been anything like a genuine Allied intervention against the Russian Revolution the...

Dainty piece HILARY SPURLING Dick Whittington (Palladium) Robert Brothers Circus (Roundhouse) Visiting the Palladium in the past has been more often than not a nervous...

JOHN HIGGINS A year ago Walter Felsenstein's production of The Love for Three Oranges opened in East Berlin's Komische Oper. It had been a long time coming and any number of...

Carre on saying PENELOPE HOUSTON The Looking Glass War (Paramount, 'A') David Copperfteld (Studio One, 1J') 'The Department was housed in a crabbed, sooty villa of a place...

Food of love MICHAEL WYMAN Having been weaned on Toscanini and Ansermet, Boulez's performance of La Mer, which I first heard at the end of my teens, was a revelation to me. It...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT It is difficult to imagine a textile industry without Joe Hyman. It is like having to watch soccer without George Best. I can only hope that like George Best...

Royal road JOHN BULL Equities have some buoyancy in them now. We are in a market in which it is possible to make money, though I do not expect the Financial Times ordinary...

From the Rev Alan A. Brash, Gordon Evans, H. J. P. Priest, R. I. E. Knight, Ian Harvey, Professor W. A. C. Stewart, I. H. K. Lock- hart, I. Fendall, Katherine Hondius, J. A. H....

Sir: Mr Dyson's review of Mr Skidelsky's book on progressive schools (20 December 1969) is entitled 'Reddie's ghost' and re- hearses familiar generalised criticisms of the...

Sir: Mr Cranley Onslow's previous state- ments on aid have normally been confined to banalities such as, 'Aid is making the have-nots into haves and the haves into have-nots ....

Sir: Robert Blake's article (3 January) on the Cabinet Papers of 1939 was, like every- thing he writes, authoritative and interesting. In the light, however, of his observation...

Sir: Many people interested in education will doubtless share Dr Rhodes Boyson's pun- gently expressed doubts (3 January) about the oddly-named Q and F level examinations now...

Sir: The Arabs and Jews have never been the best of friends: never. While I cannot agree with everything that George Gale wrote (27 December 1969), neither can I accept...

Sir: In his review (6 December 1969) of my translation and edition of Guicciardini's History of Italy (Collier-Macmillan), Mr John Lamer fails to inform his readers that the...

Sir: On the tenth day of Christmas (3 Janu- . ary) I had hoped for a more optimistic note on cancer from John Rowan Wilson, even allowing that his reading of the therapeutic...

Sir: In your leading article on capital punishment (20 December) you drew atten- tion to the fact that the Government's excuse for hastening the abolition of the death penalty...

Sir: The charge in Mr Pulitzer's opinions about the Vietnam war (letters, 20 Decem- ber) illustrates a problem many Americans faced during the course of this Asian con- flict....

Sir: With all its faults the press is infinitely more interesting and, to my mind, infinitely more important than the degrading 'grin and blare it' box, with all its studio...

Sir: Mr Simpson (Letters, 29 November 1969) provided me with an interesting half- hour experimenting with Richard Willson's caricature of the Queen (15 November 1969), trying,...

Sir: Would someone please suggest to Sir Denis Brogan that perhaps he might make a resolution for the New Year to restrain himself from incessant name-dropping in his articles...

Offensive JOHN WELLS A manuscript that may throw fresh light on forthcoming events in the world of politics, journalism and the arts has been unearthed by the Whitehall...

No. 587: Signs and wonders Set by Joyce Johnson: Competitors are invited to give an account of either the escape of the gunboats from Cherbourg into Haifa, or the capture of the...

PHILIDOR C. Promislo (2nd Prize, Good Compatfons 1916). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to No. 472 (Loshinski): Kt-Kt6, threat Kt-B4. 1 . . ....

Across 1 You have to stand to get a good one in the event (6) 4 Leaves for the honeymoon in orderly fashion? (5, 3) 8 There's no doubt it's + (8) 10 '0 sacred — of ambitious...