'August. . . July. . . June. . . any advance on 7 May?' S peculation intensified about the likely date of the general election. Dr David Owen predicted that it would be held on...

THE ALLIANCE TAKES OVER T he calculations which will decide the election date now concern above all the Alliance: whether the Alliance will reach that mysterious 'breakthrough...

ALL the best wars used to be trade wars, the Dutch and English being particular masters of the art. It was orie of the perils of mercantilist protectionism, which Adam Smith...

How the rediscovery of Europe can cause a slight head cold FERDINAND MOUNT W hen seeing oneself at 'a turning- point in history' and suffering from jetlag, one does tend to...

JOHN GRIGG T he 30-odd million raised by the sale of the Windsors' jewellery, and destined for the Pasteur Institute, may represent the largest charitable benefaction by any...

A further insight into the world of people in wigs AUBERON WAUGH T he Courts of Justice in the Strand have many characteristics of an extremely ex- pensive club. No money has...

The 'Baby M' surrogate motherhood case has the process that led to the child being handed over Washington IF THEY had put it on television, the Mary Beth Whitehead/Baby M saga,...

businessman tried to sell to Japan WHILE the merchant princes of the City of London and Cable & Wireless fiddle with their executive toys in ever-increasing frustration, and Mr...

Anthony Daniels finds an ancient bread basket full of men and jokes, but not food IN A Cairo taxi, in a traffic jam on one of the city's many flyovers, I was vouchsafed an...

Francis Beckett on how the Labour leader is failing to retrieve a desperate position MOST Conservatives underestimate Neil Kinnock. They hear the stagey epigrams, and not the...

Angela Huth on the inexplicable healing of a labrador WHENEVER I hear of an inexplicable happening my reaction, I imagine, is fairly typical: credence mixed with scepticism....

The press: Paul Johnson argues that we ought to learn more about Japan BRITISH newspapers are gradually react- ing to the dramatic growth of the money industry as a source of...

MICHAEL Howard, bowing low before Toyoo Ghoten, must have privately prayed for a sympathetic hearing and a tactful solution. He was talking to the right man, but that may not...

A DISTINCTIVE City occasion was the banquet in Guildhall for King Fahd. He addressed the City worthies in Arabic, much as the Emir Faisal addressed the peacemaking worthies at...

A HAPPY new tax year to all our readers, and what a shame that the last week of the old year saw such a shake-out in the market. Those patiently waiting for the new year before...

WEDNESDAY, 22 April will be a sad day in the calendar of Lloyd's of London. It is the day which the ruling Council has chosen, to announce the findings in the case of Sir Peter...

Boycott a Japanese, win a Porsche not the City's kind of competition CHRISTOPHER FILDES I f there is anyone in the City of London Who favours what the Government is now doing...

Big vegetables play at numbers while the war clouds gather JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE M r James Baker has a certain amount to answer for. Many years ago, when Mr Baker was working his...

Sir: My friend Alan Waticins's memory is at fault (Diary, 28 March). Television programmes cannot afford to waste time, any more than columnists can: the attempt to induce him...

Sir: Whether it is due to the onset of Alzheimer's Disease or just his customary bilious fog, I am afraid that Auberon Waugh's memory is beginning to play tricks on him. Some...

Sir: Piers Paul Read's article `Sex and Sin' (4 April) is based on an imaginary world where every woman could be married to a husband able to protect and provide for his family...

Sir: As I sit suffering in a British Rail train, a solution to the current trade deficit with Japan occurs to me. Surely British electronics can come up with a small device...

Sir: I was interested to read in your books pages (28 March) the rechauffe of Gavin Stamp's prejudices against Quinlan Terry, as first aired in the Telegraph. But surely like...

Sir: Charles Glass should not be permitted to get away with his description ('Senseless censors', 21 March) of Noam Chomsky as a `samizdat writer', appropriately published in a...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY — Save 15% on the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for £ (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES 12...

Britain is taking part in a mad round of arms sales to friend and foe alike. John Ralston Saul finds that the West now has a permanent wartime economy SEARCH of real...

NOTHING is more characteristic of the humourists of the age in contrast with those of previous generations, than their employment of purely mechanical processes to secure a...

Norman Stone ONI: STALIN'S POLISH PUPPETS by Teresa Toranska, translated by Agnieszka Kolakowska and introduced by Harry Willetts T hrough all the social upheavals of Central...

J. Enoch Powell A CONCORDANCE TO PROUST by Frances Stern Adam Books, £7.50 T hose of us for whom a new phase in our aesthetic experience began with the discovery of Proust...

among the crocodiles Geoffrey Wheatcroft A VOYAGER OUT: THE LIFE OF MARY KINGSLEY by Katherine Frank Hamish Hamilton, £14.95 I n a recent book, Professor Ali Mazrui suggests...

J. L. Carr CHEKHOV by Henri Troyat translated by Michael Heim Macmillan, £14.95 A lthough Henri Troyat does not apologise for adding yet another to the biographies of Anton...

Evelyn Jo11 J. M. W. TURNER: A WONDERFUL RANGE OF MIND by John Gage Yale, £19.95 TURNER IN HIS TIME by Andrew Wilton Thames & Hudson, £25 TURNER IN THE SOUTH: ROME, NAPLES,...

Piers Paul Read AN HISTORIAN'S CONSCIENCE by Christian B. Peper OUP, BO I n 1939 Arnold Toynbee went to see his youngest son at Ampleforth College in Yorkshire. There he met...

Anita Brookner SUGAR AND OTHER STORIES by A. S. Byatt Chatto & Windus, £10.95 T he circumscribed life of the writer comes through with alarming strength in this collection of...

Byron Rogers SPORTING LITERATURE: AN ANTHOLOGY edited by Vernon Scannell OUP, £12.50 M y notes on this anthology read like one of Francois Villon's ballades. Where is Nimrod on...

Ben Pimlott THE CORRESPONDENCE OF CHARLES DARWIN, VOL II: 1837- 1843 edited by F. Burkhardt and S. Smith CUP, £30 T he production of a complete, fully annotated edition :of...

J. G. Links THE PARTNERSHIP: THE SECRET ASSOCIATION OF BERNARD BERENSON AND JOSEPH DUVEEN by Conn Simpson The Bodley Head, £15 E veryone likely to read this book knows...

A. L. Rowse CELTIC BRITAIN by Charles Thomas Thames & Hudson, £12.50 I find this book utterly fascinating. Of course, as a Celt I am prejudiced in its favour. All the same, I...

The eye, plunged in a foliage thick as water- weed, a reticulated under-surface, forgets and loses itself where, like a fish, a fin- or spine-flick glints in Westbourne Terrace...

Exhibitions The Turner Collection in the Clore Gallery The Stirling devaluation Giles Auty h e opening of a major new art gallery is a rare event. On the afternoon of 1...

Silbersee (Camden Festival) Language course Rodney Milnes L ast week's staging of Sallinen's opera, jointly commissioned by the Savonlinna Festival, the Royal Opera and the...

Clones and monsters Noel Malcolm W en I penned my farewell tribute to the Timpson-Redhead Today Programme, a kind reader wrote to me to question the validity of the...

A Piece of My Mind (Apollo) Serious Money (Royal Court) A piece of self-indulgence Christopher Edwards h e hero of Peter Nichols's new comedy is a disillusioned middle-aged...

Drama on ration Hilary Mantel C an there be a soul left alive in the land, except in kindergarten and locked wards, who does not know the story of 84 Charing Cross Road. First...

Familial strains Wendy Cope I don't usually take any notice of posters about rock singers but when the name on the poster is Cope it naturally catches my eye. Early last year...

Weep for Warhol Taki cially one as blessed as that of St Patrick's Cathedral. But there they were, pouring out of their limos while the cops held back the crowds, all of them...

The Alma Collection (Colnaghi's till lpm 11 April, then by appointment with Piers Gibson, 41 Ovington Street, London 5W3, 01-589 2830) Tables turned James Knox U ntil...

Lemon roux Jeffrey Bernard A fter having tipped you the horse that finished 19th in the William Hill Lincoln Handicap, Framlington Court, I felt I had lost all credibility. A...

Mouse sense Alice Thomas Ellis Now Someone protested when I said we should repaint the hallway. He implied that there was nothing wrong with it as It was and that my desire to...

YESTERDAY I went to a champagne reception, no less, to celebrate the winners of the Commis Chef of the Year 1987 competition sponsored by the Academie Culinaire de France (UK)....

Titans Raymond Keene J ust two days ago the SWIFT Super- tournament started up in Brussels, evident- ly too late for inclusion of any early results in this column. Kasparov,...

Bucking up Bucks Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1466 yoUwere asked to imagine a scheme for promoting 'self- esteem' among the inhabitants of a British county and to provide an...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the Words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

Increasingly our language features barbar- ous words that are truncations or abbreva- tions (not acronyms). You are invited to write a poem (maximum 16 lines) which includes a...

= 800; cf circuits and Chambers. The puzzle cele- brated the Spectator's 800th crossword in the present series. Winners: D. P. Chappell, Seve- noaks (£20); Jack Walton, Epsom;...