The Irish Prime Minister, Mr Jack Lynch, visits the United States. One of the purposes of his trip is to dissuade Irish Americans from contributing cash and other assistance to...

Ferdinand Mount The first time round, it sounded quite impressive. To begin with, the government's White Paper had the inestimable advantage of being presented to MPs by Mr...

When I met Ian Smith a fortnight ago he said that Lonrho had switched its financial support from the Patriotic Front leader Joshua Nkomo to Bishop Muzorewa. This may explain...

Auberon Waugh One learns many strange and wonderful things out East, not all of them suitable for repeating back home. One of the things I learned in Hong Kong was that there...

Henry Fairlie Washington By nothing more than a freak of accident, Edward Kennedy's announcement that he is now truly a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination has...

Roger Cooper The resignation of Mehdi Bazargan brings to an undignified end Iran's 70year-old experiment in Western-style cabinet government. Bazargan was the first to admit...

Richard West Buenos Aires It was no surprise to read in an English newspaper that: 'The London Borough of Camden is "adopting" a South American political prisoner a sociologist...

Charles Douglas-Home For 29 of the 32 years since independence, India has had a Nehru as Prime Minister. Father and daughter between them have established an Indian identity...

Christopher Booker Among all the hundreds of thousands of words spilled out last week in the aftermath of the massive vote by British Leyland workers in favour of Sir Michael...

George Gale The Trades Union Congress, our present chief estate, did not distinguish itself this year. Last year it pulled, then held, itself together, ready for Mr Callaghan...

Peter Ackroyd Oxford Six or seven people were marching down the High Street; they were carrying banners, but most of them had been furled and the rest were tucked under...

A very praiseworthy effort to interest working-men in thoroughly good music has, we hear, been recently almost unexpectedly successful. Two popular concerts were given this week...

Musical fantasia Sir: 'The chief defect of Master Booker', as Belloc might have written, forsaking rhyme for respectability, 'is being such a silly chap'. Nowhere is this sad...

Sir: In his Notebook (3 November), Simon Courtauld raises the connection of several Asian leaders in their collaboration with the Japanese army in the last world war. He seems...

Sir: In his Notebook (27 October) Mr Chancellor uses the phrase 'Lady Lucan, whom . . . her husband wanted to murder'. Since Lord Lucan has not merely not been tried but has not...

Sir: With The Times still absent for a little longer, the obituaries in the daily press of Sir Barnes Wallis, who has died at the age of 92, have been rather brief and...

Sir: In his article (27 October) Auberon Waugh asserts that man's relationship to God is an intensely private affair. While this is true as far as the first commandment goes, it...

Sir: I did French at school; I guess most of your readers did. I guess most of them have, like me, since forgotten most of it. Why do you let your contributors clutter up their...

Alastair Forbes Princes of Wales Alan Palmer (Weidenfeld £8.50) The Court of St James's Christopher Hibbert (Weidenfeld £7.50) Charles, Prince of Wales Anthony Holden...

Edward Mortimer The Palestinians Jonathan DIMblebY Photographs by Donald McCullin (Quartet £ Let me get some criticisms of detail out of the way first. It is not true, as...

John McEwen The Obstacle Race Germaine Greer (Seeker £9.95) What to do for an encore, that is the great problem for writers with a bestseller to their credit. There are two...

Benny Green The Americans Alistair Cooke (Bodley Head £5.95) The composition of a radio script to be read by the writer has little to do with literature. In the pragmatic...

Paul Ableman rhe Mangan Inheritance Brian Moore ( Cape £5.50) l'his is a marvellous book. The prose is rich 4nd flexible and, as it generates people and Places and thoughts,...

Pat Gilmour The announcement that the Arts budget will not be cut in 1980 - 81 (except possibly by the ravages of 22 per cent inflation) comes only just in time to cobble a...

Gavin Stamp The 'Thirties' show At the Hayward (until 13 January) may have something for everybody but it is almost indigestible; the organisers seem to have tackled the...

John McEwen The 'Thirties — British art and design before the war' (Hayward Gallery tilt 13 January) is more of a hotch-potch than its sub-title suggests. Art, at least in the...

Rodney Milnes L'amoredei tre re, La Vestale, Crispin° e la comare (Wexford Festival) The well balanced Wexford programme presented one good bad opera, one good good opera and...

Polly Toynbee Amadeus (Olivier) Old Herbaceous (Mayfair) Amadeus by Peter Shaffer should have been a musical. The only moments that were really moving were when Mozart's music...

Richard Ingrams I used to enjoy having a good sneer on a Sunday at Read All About It, the BBC programme devoted to new paperbacks. Now however it has been taken off for reasons...

Taki Occasionally horrors of such magnitude take place that only the perpetrators, the mercenary, and the totally insensitive go on about their business as usual. Such a...

Jeffrey Bernard I suppose the final joke was that Muriel Belcher should have died on Halloween and then been cremated on Guy Fawkes Day, She certainly would have appreciated it...

John Mortimer Last week seems to have been lived under the shadow of the gallows. There is a court in London which disposes of capital cases in a brisk, not to say...