The principal active ingredient in the for- eign policy of the United Kingdom, and a chief passive ingredient in that of the United States, is the present negotiation whose...

Hush, the Leader speaks PETER PATERSON By a series of extraordinary chances a copy of the speech Mr Edward Heath proposes to make on Saturday at the end-of-conferd ence rally...

society:.

NOTE BOOK There are still people around, although fewer this week than last, who regard Roy Jenkins as a potential Leader of the Labour party and thus a prospective Prime...

The Pariah and the Election PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE Readers of the sPEcrAroa—and others— will be interested to know that this latest book* on Enoch Powell contains contribu-1...

MAURICE COWLING In a remarkable letter to the Economist ten days after the general election, Sir Edwin Leather took to task the pollsters and pun- dits for not understanding...

by 'a Conservative' Right Turn* is a review, written from a free. market standpoint, of the future line of policy which ought to be possible under a Conservative government....

With a flourish of publicity, and in good time for this week's Conservative party confer- ence, the Government unveiled its industrial relations reform programme. It contains...

NEW ZEALAND The rights of lamb Alexander llaeLEOD Wellington, NZ: Mr Geoffrey Rippon, Britain's chief Common Market negotiator, ended his New Zealand visit with the words of...

Estranged KULDIP NAYAR When in London a few days ago. I met no Briton who defended India's closure of the BBC office. Now in Delhi I have met no Indian who has a word of...

Malawi's Banda Hope MOLLY MORTIMER T he first man I met in Malawi this year had fled his tribal wars in Belfast for the peace of Blantyre. That seemed symbolic - of the...

The large and poverty stricken desert, lately become Botswana has a number of interest- ing records: the first country to have a woman High Commissioner in London; the first...

PETA FORDHAM I was away in France when the news of Mrs McKay's " abduction broke. Twenty-four hours later, the London underworld was humming with theories and rumours, united...

The first Fascist? A CLASSICIST A Mr Denis Arnold, I see, was foolish enough to declare in the Sunday Thnes that Richard Wagner was the first Nazi. This is manifestly untrue....

Too much government? DAVID WILLIAMS More and more, oppressively more and more, the British are being looked after. Not so long ago I walked across that splendid Roman aqueduct...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS Towards a Socialist Britain Is pungently written. They tell us we need A more Socialist creed. Yet the thought at times strikes them That nobody likes...

TIBOR SZAAIUELY It may or may not be a cause for pride, but the New Left, like so many other features of modern life, was born in Britain. The momentous event occurred some ten...

The Balkans and the President RICHARD KILIAN Belgrade. An unknown Yugoslav by the 'name of Raskovic eaused one of Richard Nixon's oldest friends and closest advisers a short...

Reporting the conferences BILL GRUNDY The first thing that hits your eye, when you look down at a party conference from the Tv commentary position, is a row of long white...

Sir: As some examples of oral mal- practice got omitted from my remarks on the Hyphens-Are Obscene doctrine last week, which made the next sentence a bit mysterious, perhaps you...

From: B. L. Stapleton. Douglas W. Franklin, Michael Bassett, S. F. Hagan, Louis Claiborne, F. R. Lyon, Daniel Armwrighter. V. W. S. Leatherdale, John Palmer, P. N. L. Lycett, C....

Sir: From his opening proposition that road accidents can be related to the product of mass by velocity Mr Oliver Stewart arrives at vs hat seems to be the neat conclusion that...

Sir: Among the penalties of read- ing oneself in print is discovering errors, one's own and the printer's. My own mistakes I leave to others to point up, but I must correct a...

Sir: My own experience suggests that it is premature of your Note Book to conclude (3 October) that spiders fall into baths from ceilings rather than emerge from the waste-...

Sir: I read in that scurrilous gos- sip-sheet written by one calling himself Mr PHS (presumably after Printing House Square, where I understand the Times is printed; and...

Sir: Spiders drop—or creep—all over the house: but they cannot get out of baths and wash-basins again, which is why we notice them there! V. W. S. Leatherdale 31 Bertie Road,...

Sir: Dr Rowan Wilson, writing on change of jobs in middle life (26 September) ignores historical bias in his evidence. People born between (approxi- mately) 1905 and 1917 are...

Sir: in his article (26 September) about the length of time some Russians stay in office your con- tributor did not name the man, Mr Suslov who as I remember has been in office...

Sir: Mr Peter Smith feels that the critics of the Open University would be better employed inquir- ing into the nature of a viable system of education for inex- perienced...

Sir: I read, with some amazement Nour Notebook of 26 September. I dislike notebook scribblers; pom- pous piddling hacks, admired mainly by idiots and I wish to state this...

Sir: But the seemingly obvious difference between singular and plural has been in almost total confusion for many years. No modern writer, not even an Army expert, has ever got...

Sir: Dr Rowse's contention (26 September) that the young man of Shakespeare's sonnets was the Earl of Southampton is not quite so commonsense as he supposes. One awkward thing...

Sir: How splendid to see the Sun of 5 Powis Grove rising yet again to illuminate our political gloom! The warming rays of Mr Skcffing- ton-Lodge once more bring a flush to our...

Sir: Though rather illiberal in some, ways (I support birching, hanging and National Service), I think I can answer Peter Paterson and indeed yourself. The Liberal party is a...

sif: Sections of the press are making play with the less personal form of government' we now ex- perience. The Mirror talks of 'The Imisible Man', for instance. TV is not immune...

JOHN McMANNERS Philosopher King: The Humanist Pope Bene- dict XIV Renee Haynes (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 60s) The history of the eighteenth-century popes can best be understood...

FRANCIS WATSON British Drawings in the India Office Library Mildred Archer (HMSO 2 vols 70s each) Portrait of India Ved Mehta. (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 70s) Cannibalism is...

MICHAEL BOBBIE Great Libraries Anthony Hobson (Weiden- feld and Nicolson 130s until 1 January 1971 then 150s) Mr Hobson's new book succinctly describes the formation, growth...

DOUGLAS HURD The Vainglorious War A. J. Barker (VVeiden- feld and Nicolson 70s) On 20 September 1854 the Grenadier and Coldstream Guards crossed the Alma in perfect line...

RHODES BOYSON Philip Magnus, Victorian Educational Pioneer Frank Foden (Vallentine Mit , chell 50s) Having myself written a biography of a nine- teenth century figure I am well...

Girls and boys J. G. FARRELL Hind's Kidnap Joseph McElroy (Blond 50s) The Rape of Tamar Dan Jacobson (Weiden , feld and Nicolson 30s) Godded and Codded Julia O'Faolain (Faber...

at Vienna I see American poetry with red claws conquering the world. It makes a Vietnam in the Pushkin industry. It calls the sonnet Robert Bly. Somewhere under the fingers...

A short man with a pinched look and a high moustache walks fast up the Judengasse. They try to sell him a leather jacket, a black Homburg hat, a pair of driving-gloves He...

GEORGE MacBETH The Mayerling dream At dead of night In pouring rain I dress your body Inside my brain. Mary Vetsera Died at Mayerling Rudolf shot' her Through the head I am...

On the thirteenth day a tiny silver snail with a sword through its neck screams on a rock. Armies quiver and lunge like porcupines. Dinosaurs, or perhaps camels, mount a hill...

Gut-squeal. I hear it all night in my dream. Between rails and wire, it worries through the Ring-circuit like a rat in a maze. No wonder it squeals. Gas-worm. Eating its way...

It's a gas, going to the gas, going to the gas, it's a gas, Man, going to the gas I walk on tip-toe To the Zyklon B. They're goin' to crucify Little me. Up ahead Stick men in...

One with a bugle, slash of gold, over his shoulder. •••■■• The rest, grey gums. They gnash forward, swine's-flesh, into rancid_meat. Only, this was the first war. They oar in...

Bresson enigma PENELOPE HOUSTON The total lucidity of Robert Bresson's images; the ambiguity and difficulty of his ultimate purposes . . . After the glories of Balthasar and...

Ceri's celtic clarity BRYAN ROBERTSON Why and on what grounds the phrase `celtic twilight' was first used to qualify, half mock- ipgly, the celtic spirit at work in painting,...

Not cricket KENNETH HURREN The Jockey Club Stakes, at the Vaudeville, is a rather woebegone trifle by William Douglas Home about skulduggery on the Turf that will be chiefly...

Public pleasers Patrick Skene CATLING 'Who are you trying to please?' Eric More- cambe asked himself and his partner, Ernie Wise, in a genially nostalgic programme of showbiz...

Brum Barbirolli GILLIAN WIDDICOMBE Those who believe that culture in Birm- ingham began with the Bullring will be surprised to learn how old are the roots of the City of...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT The City presents a curious paradox today — serene confidence growing in the indus- trial share markets and a complete lack of confidence outside. Another...

JOHN BULL It may seem a little strange, but it was a Conservative Minister who was the last politician to say that, despite its protestations to the contrary, British business...

No. 625: Octet Competitors are invited to compose an eight- line poem or stanza of a poem on any one of the subjects given below, using four of the following five pairs of...

Alas! Poor Porbeagle DIANA GRAVES For the last twelve years I have been devour- ing my dictionary in the same way that can- nibals have always eaten the bravest of their foes...

PHILIDOR L. I. Loshmski (Problemist, 1930). White to play and mate m two moves; solution next week, Solution to No. 510 (Leites-1K1NrIbR/ 2PB kpR 1 / 1 Q1pP3/5n2/2N5/24): P x...

I have been at most of the Olympiads since 1933 and I don't know of any chess event which leaves one feeling more drained and empty at the end, whether one has done well or...

Blaney's Bass CLIVE GAMMON Whatever little bit of a scrape Neil Blaney got himself into recently—you may recall that he was Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries in the Irish...

Bus stop PETER QUINCE Like most people in the village, I tend to grumble about our local bus service more often than I make use of it. Every village, however much it prizes...

Eating for everyday Pamela Vandyke-Price Eating and drinking being matters as per- sonal as sex, it seuns strange for there to be so many rigid rules about what is 'good'...

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER A pervasive note of nostalgia 'for a vanished world was already creeping into Sir Neville Cardus's Autobiography when it was pub- lished over twenty years...

From .the 'Spectator', 8 October 1870—There is a regular Mfinchausen story in a Belgian paper called the Nouvelles du Jour about the grappling of a French and Prussian balloon...

DAEDALUS A prize of three guineas will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution opened on 19 October. Address solutions: Crossword 1450, The Spectator, 99 Gower...