11 AUGUST 1979

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The need for courage

The Spectator

her all the many brickbats thrown at Mrs Thatcher, not even ;ler most ferocious detractors have ever hurled one labelled coward' in her direction. Her critics accuse her of...

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Political commentary

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Quango man fights back Ferdinand Mount 'Quakers,' Malcolm Muggeridge used to say, 'minister to the minor vices.' He meant chocolates and cocoa, but he could have included...

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Notebook

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What can be done to improve our penal system? The question is often put, suggestions are made which may be impractical, or e xpensive, or are concerned with only one Of the...

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Commonwealth compromise

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Nicholas Ashford Lusaka 'I found that President Nyerere and I were astonishingly close,' declared Mrs Margaret Thatcher in Lusaka this week, shortly after the Commonwealth...

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A long, hot summer

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Nicholas von Hoffman Washington Congress has left town on holiday, leaving one last Jimmy joke, which holds that the President isn't a case of the emperor having no clothes,...

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The forgotten refugees

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Emma Parsons Djibouti One of the poorest countries in the world and only two years independent from France, Djibouti faces a series of seemingly insurmountable problems. This...

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Middle East: divide and lose

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b esmond Stewart Cairo Arab rifts are widening into canyons and, e i , ve n when started by outsiders, they se authentic obstacles to the develop' 1 1 ;ent of Arab unity. The...

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Dominoes with a difference

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Richard West It was President Eisenhower, 25 years ago, who coined the telling metaphor about what would happen in South-East Asia if Vietnam succeeded China in falling to the...

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Plants and the class system

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Bill Langland Do you talk to your plants? A lot of people do, but until recently no one has paid any attention to the best type of conversation for each plant species. At last...

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Civilisation and its discontents

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Christopher Booker It tnay seem cheating to conclude this series 'books of the Seventies' with the script of 4 televi s i on series that was both broadcast published in 1969....

A hundred years ago

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The thunder-storm of last Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, was one of the most severe and the most universal ever known in England. But, fortunately, the most...

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The Berkeley affair

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It's distressing to read (4 August) how flomphry Berkeley was beaten up during i ns attempt to stage a pro-Nigeria coup in the Transkei. What baffles is his tone of Injured...

Vi ews on abortion . 4 , 1 r: Mary Kenny's article on abortion and

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" l e press (28 July) contains some very Misleading statements about public opinion oo this subject. She says that 'the British are broadly sPin', gives figures of 56 per cent...

Bravo, Talc'

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Sir: My heartfelt congratulations to Taki (Spectator, 21 July) for getting 'bon vivant' right. Lest he think that I am being facetious, let me assure him that, for more than 30...

Defamed

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Sir: My attention has been drawn to an item in your magazine in which your television critic writes about Dr Goebbels's film of 'the ranting State prosecutor Roland Freisler,...

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Books

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Secret lives of women Paul Ableman Chamber Music Doris Grumbach (Hamish Hamilton £5.50) Sleepless Nights Elizabeth Hardwick (Weidenfeld £5.50) My colleague, Christopher...

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Fs and Us and Smileyfaces

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Richard Cobb Pariswalks: Five intimate walking tours of the most historic and enchanting quartlers of Left and Right Banks Alison and Sonia Landes (New Republic Books,...

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Survivor

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Anthony Storr Surviving and other Essays Bruno Bettelheim (Thames & Hudson £10) Until he retired, Bruno Bettelheim was director of the Orthogenic School at the University of...

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Law Lords

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J.A.G. Griffith Law and Politics: The House of Lords as a Judicial Body 1800-1976 Robert Stevens (Weidenfeld £18.50) In no aspect of government is the British System more...

On the moors

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Max Hastings Going To The Moors Ronald Eden (John Murray £11) Nothing has gone right for the Tory Party since it cast loose from the grouse moor image. If the Prime Minister...

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War novel

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Benny Green Now God Be Thanked John Masters (Michael Joseph £6.50) Some years ago in a volume of autobiography, J. B. Priestley, who spent most of the Great war on the Western...

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Arts

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The case of Bruckner Hans Keller Bruckner's Ninth Symphony will be played in next Thursday's Prom (16 August). broadcast live on Radio 3 at 7.30 p.m. Yes, it is still a case,...

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Cinema

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Big bang Ted Whitehead The China Syndrome (Leicester Square Theatre) The title of The China Syndrome (A) takes some explaining. It refers to a terrifying possibility dreamed...

Theatre

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Conjuring Peter Jenkins As You Like It (Olivier) A performance of a play is a fleeting affair like the life of a butterfly and one of the reviewer's tasks is to capture it in...

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Opera

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Flying start 'Rodney Miines Lucia di Lammermoor (Buxton Festival) The opening of the first post-war Buxton Pestival (Lilian Baylis, as always, got there first) was assailed...

Television

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More deadly Richard ingrams 1 had hoped that recent strikes in Independent Television would consign to oblivion certain best-forgotten programmes, but it was not to be. LWT...

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Low life

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Animal crackers Jeffrey Bernard I've just been listening to another of those nutty, veterinary psychiatrists talking on the radio and this particular one was on about how he'd...

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Last word

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'Victory Geoffrey Wheatcroft Conquered City is, as I wrote last week, 1 he last book of Victor Serge's trilogy. The tponymous city is Petrograd (formerly St 1 'etersburg,...