The result of the election to the Ulster Constitutional Convention was a severe blow to the Westminster Government and also, of course, to those redoubtable political warriors,...

Sir: As one who would like if possible to share your political correspondent's enthusiasm for the 'star quality of Mrs Margaret Thatcher I have been wondering how her recent...

From Dr John A. H. Wylie Sir: It was good to see gracing your columns after so long an absence, an offering in characteristic vein from my friend, neighbour and good-natured...

From the Marquess of Tavistock Sir: I would like to make a few points regarding Mr Raymond Boyle's letter in The Spectator (April 19). How anyone can have the ignorance to...

From Professor T. E. Rowell Sir: Linklater is mistaken. The steroid hormones are common not only to all mammals but to all vertebrates, and so must have evolved at least...

From Lady Antonia Fraser and Francis King Sir: The decision by Bucks County Libraries to save money by ceasing to buy new fiction and children's books is a double blow to...

Sir: Beneath the comments and strictures passed upon those involved in the tragic case at Barnsley, both by the media and by the church authorities, has been the underlying...

Sir: In his comments on the NUJ annual delegate meeting (May 3) Bill Grundy applauds Ken Morgan's abuse of me but declines to answer my argument — or even to say what I was...

Sir: In its editorial on the British Leyland debacle The Spectator tells us, 'the case for some control of institutional funds is overwhelming'. I wonder if that is so. It is...

Sir: Nicolas Walter (April 19), in reply to Martin Sullivan (April 5), declares his unbelief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and indeed of His ever having existed; he bases...

that twenty years in AD 60 is equal to twenty minutes in 1974 as communications were so slow. Not all that slow, as fast as any time before the railway. With relays the Imperial...

Sir: The ubiquitous and loquacious Mr Ernest Wistrich came here during the week to tell the good people of Bucks why they should vote for our continued membership of the EEC....

intimidate antiMarketeers with the threat of the horrors of communism in this country if we elect to come out of Europe. It would appear, however, that he has overlooked the...

Sir: May I respectfully point out (Letters, May 3) that those who are apt to prefix the definite article to the name of the elegant sets of chambers off Piccadilly known as...

Sir: Although it is gratifying to have one's book reviewed in your columns, I cannot let Miss Nancy Banks-Smith's sneering piece go unanswered when it gives such a false...

Sir: The following facts may amuse your readers: I have been looking through old diaries since 1969. In six years I have written and edited twenty-five books; so far I have...

A shift in the balance of power Patrick Cosgrave The departure of the Americans from South Vietnam, long though it had been predicted, was a shock. It is often thus with...

EEC versus the West? Lionel Gelber If politics and economics did not interact as much as they do there would be less confusion about the nature of the European Economic...

Disabled housewives Jane McLoughlin In spite of the promises, promises, we are still a long way from that old ideal of government of the people, by the people for the people....

Diplomacy is many-faced, But Henry K, the US rep Created, as with each he paced, A new kind, christened 'Step-by-Step.' His first step made on Vietnam, Were Paris talks with...

Before the tourists Danny Halperin Since the nights of May 20 and 21, 1940, when a few of General Guderian's men indulged in a minor shooting spree along the quais, nothing...

England's churches Patrick Cormack, MP A few weeks ago I wrote of the threat to our country houses posed by new forms of taxation in the midst of inflation. The same...

Malignant objectors Thomas W. Gadd Among smokers in general it is consensus that — maugre the shrill protests of the killjoy • banshees — smoking, with some self-control by...

Common politicians such as myself always prick up our ears whenever our lordly neighbours attempt to exercise their powers, as they will this week, in the case of the...

It there is one argument in favour of the Common Market which I have not seen widely canvassed, it is the number of international free-loads available to spongers like myself. I...

Thursday, the First Day of May It is perhaps natural that our Clerks and Scribblers, having long confused Liberty with Copulation outside Wedlock (or with Whores,, or with...

Life is not all beer and skittles for the toilers on our contemporary, Private Eye — once a year it is wine and boule, which is a pleasant change for them and I am glad to hear...

Way back in the 1950s, a Mr Philip Jarvis spoke the unspeakable. He said books were like soap, Since Mr Jarvis was at that time the chief book buyer for Boots, there is no...

J. Enoch Powell on folk who go on pilgrimages Anyone who sets out by supposing that the pilgrim ,and the pilgrimage were some distinct but minor feature of the Christian...

Donald Macrae Paris and its Provinces, 1792-1802. Richard Cobb (Oxford University Press £5.25) Most books are written with the simple ambition that they will be bought and...

William Trevor Play for Today: the evolution of television drama Irene Shubik (Davis-Poynter £3.75) One Spring afternoon in 1968 I walked out of a restaurant in Charlotte...

Francis King A Kind of Survivor Guy Chapman (Gollancz £5.00) I Could be Happy Sandy Wilson (Michael Joseph £6.00) If one were AO judge then solely in terms of material success,...

Richard Luckett Henry James: Letters 1843-1875 edited by Leon Edel (Macmillan £10.00) Literary inheritance and guardianship, the preservation and transmission of the work and...

George Hutchinson Politics in Practice Lord Windlesham (Jonathan Cape £5.00) Democracy Jack Lively (Basil Blackwell £3.00) Since his previous book, Communication and Political...

Comic strip Peter Ackroyd Tales of Power, Carlos Castaneda (Hodder and Stoughton £3.50) "Do you know that one moment can be eternity?" says don Juan to Carlos Castaneda, with...

Foot bull Benny Green It is a fact of unimpeachable historical authority that in 1873, in the week before the football international match between England and Scotland, the...

Who sprang the leak? Bill Grundy. One day last week an envelope arrived on the desk of the editor of the Daily Telegraph, Mr William Deedes. It contained. so I am given to...

Whose children? Rhodes Boyson MP One of the fundamental clashes between collectivists and supporters of the free society is over the education of children. The collectivist...

Friends of the circle lain Scarlet We all know that 'charity' has become a dirty word but, since everyone loves a lord and few have much time for prisoners and exprisoners, I...

Banning the sex well Philip Kleinman An innocuous advertisement in one of the colour supplements. A shapely young couple on a beach. He is topping up her glass with tonic...

The Issels affair Bernard Dixon In a week's time, almost exactly two years after the date originally scheduled, Hodder and Stoughton will publish Issels — The Biography of a...

Jacob and Esau Martin Sullivan -- Last week I promised a glance at another incident from the Old Testament and here it is. The story to which I am about to refer is part of...

One of the most important events on the London art calendar is the Royal Academy exhibition. In an average year, 12,000 submissions are received from more than 4,000 artists. In...

Escapegoats Kenneth Robinson Paper Tiger Director: Ken Annakin Stars: David Niven, Ando, Toshiro Mifune, Hardy Kruger 'A' Odeon, Leicester Square (90 Minutes). Breakout...

Flagging spirits Kenneth Hurren The Clandestine Marriage by George Colman and David Garrick (Savoy) A Journey to London by John Vanbrugh and James Saunders (Greenwich) Love's...

Panay problems Robin Young , The fuss over the Panovs was not just political. There are Jewish electricians and plumbers, of whose names you may have never heard, waiting for...

Holidays at home with the arts Rodney Mines As the poor dear middle classes get poorer and poorer, those long hot summers in Languedoc farmhouses and baking beaches on the Med...

Nicholas Davenport The Leyland collapse hangs ominously over our industrial future like the fall of Saigon over the future of the free world. Last week I met a worker who had...

Phone and letter Bernard Hollowood "This is Philips's answer to the E3 letter." When I read this my first thought, naturally, was that the Post Office had gone mad, and I made...