I 'r is sometimes said that the practice of politics must always consist of a choice of evils and that policies are more usually dictated by the force of circumstances than by...

'THE RAF MIGHT well be the first to wish to keep the results of Sky Shield II a secret.' So the Ameri- cans quashed the temporary fillip given to the state of Britain's defences...

TT is as yet too early to draw many morals 'from the United Nations military operations in the Congo. The extent of their success is, after all, still in doubt. The possible...

A RB1TRATION or surrender now seem to be the only alternatives left to the unions in their dispute with the Electricity Council. Their show of militancy has petered out in the...

I T has been known for several years now that the Russian and Chinese Communists were engaged in a bitter struggle, in which both power and doctrine were at issue. The...

B y J. HALCRO FERGUSON I N recent years the advertising profession has persuaded not only business firms but entire nations of the importance of projecting a favourable public...

By DENNIS MARSDEN T 1REE years ago, when I lived in a social work settlement in the East End, I took the opportunity of visiting a Borstal. I was kindly received by the governor...

By HENRY FA1RLIE W HILE others talk of his possible successors, and his possible successors congratulate him a little sharply on his continuing good health, Mr. Macmillan this...

I HOPE that, when the general election comes, Mr. Gaitskell will be fully recovered and able to lead his party without any clinging doubts about his health. Even his harshest...

Show .gave the Fleet Street gas- sips something to bite on. Had there' been a Beaverbrook - Mountbatten rapprochement, and if so, what lay behind it? Sunday left no doubt that...

This reminded me of an occasion years ago when a word from Lord Beaverbrook trans- formed a friend of mine from a demon king into a knight in shining armour. For months he had...

met Signor La-, Malfa, the dynamic Italian Minister for the Budget, will be surprised to hear that he is taking the lead in pressing for Italian policy to exert its maximum...

The Barking power-station workers who said they would willingly work without pay to keep hospitals functioning properly provide an almost classic example of shutting the stable...

and thought-provoking article, 'Inconsistent Objectives,' which you published last week. The Nassau meeting has undoubtedly caused us to speed up the process of reappraisal...

Wilkinson Hispanic Studies Edward M. Wilson Dickens and the Critics Peter &SOH Right Again Angus Maude the Air We Breathe L. E. Reed , If You Say It Enough A dol ph US...

by step Gordonstoun breaks a boy's tics with . the • outside world, including those With his family.' My whole article was in a sense an attempt to give evidence for this...

committee of the University Grants Commission will find means to further Latin American studies in this country. Unlike Mr. Cohen I fail to see why peninsu- lar studies should...

about being mis represented by people who haven't read him properly. He accus, 'forgot to read' my letter. First he Ls me of displaying 'a Machiavellian (rather t _han...

of his own choosing (It usually is. I don't I , ( now, for instance, quite how we got on to Flaubert, but while we are throwing personal preferences around, I would rather keep...

SIR, —Mr. Nicholas Davenport always gives such sound advice to the Chancellor. Last week he advised Mr. Maudling to tell businessmen that 'they should work on the assumption...

By CLIVE IRVING* ACROSS Sixth Avenue from the paling neon /A. and Babylonian bulk of the Radio City music hall in New York a new temple has arisen, glacial and austere. This is...

Si,---The figures Mr. Jackson gives (Spectator, December 28) for pollutants produced by motor vehicles are misleading. The major constituent of the exhaust gas is the nitrogen...

Snt,—Might one ask Mr. Fairlie and/or any other Conservative commentator what evidence there is for a decline in the revival and/or prospects of the Liberal Party save that...

Lives of the Composers By DAVID CAIRNS No great composer's life is so satisfying to contemplate as Verdi's. Almost all the others leave one with a painful sense of the...

By SARAH GAINHAM THERE is an Italian Policy in Vienna; though it has noth- ing to do with the South Tyrol, nor with poor Mattei's proble- matical pipelines to and from the...

At Waddington's By NEVILE WALLIS Like his friends William Scott and Adrian Heath, Hilton is a painter based on London with West Country connections. In his art there is seldom...

The Old Rivals By CLIFFORD HANLEY Ii might be interesting to know how many honest tele- vision efforts are abandoned by the viewers because the viewers have thought of some-...

Cold Comedy By ISABEL QUIGI,Y Grove; 'X certificate.) • DON JUAN TENORIO, one of the western world's archetypal dreams (as Well as legends), is another of those triumphs of...

Experiment and Formula By CLIVE BARNES EVERY year Covent Garden, with a frankness unique, I think, among opera houses,' -presents its accounts to public scrutiny.. The report,...

Overkill By ROBERT CONQUEST T HE great pacifist moods of the Thirties were retrospectively motivated by the First World War. In turn they imposed on our idea of it attitudes...

Earls of Creation. By James Lees-Milne. (Hamish Hamilton, 35s.) Les Pavilions. By Cyril Connolly and Jerome Zerbe. (Hamish Hamilton, 73s. 6d.) Architecture : The Indispensable...

A Favourite of the Gods. By Sybille Bedford. (Collins, 18s.) You could write two totally distinct reviews of A Favourite of the Gods; both opening: 'This is an exceedingly good...

Zambia Shall Be Free. By Kenneth D. Kaunda. (Heinemann, 12s. 6d.) Out in the Midday Sun. By Boris Gussman. (Allen and Unwin, 21s.) A Time to Speak. By June Drummond. (Gol-...

Afterthought : Pieces about Writing. By Elizabeth Bowen. (Longmans, 30s.) SEARCHING, in Aspects of the Novel, for Some all-embracing definition of the form, the nearest thing...

They Survived. By Wilfrid Noyce. (Heine- mann, 25s.) MAN'S capacity for endurance is a subject found in all kinds of literature; it is, I suppose, the real theme of all stories...

Strung green in tire-glows, this cloud was, A net for catching nothing; light leaked through it. It aimed south — had a darting look : a posture That told a lie—it died...

Caron de Beauniarehais. By Cynthia Cox. (Longrnans, 25s.) MOST of us know him as the author of two plays which later became the libretti of famous operas. The second Figaro...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT THE time has surely come for us all to take a more sensible view of the ordinary share (commonly called the 'equity') and its owners. This applies not only...

By LOTHBURY I AST week the bank dividend season was opened by Martins, which recorded a 1 per cent, decline in profits. This was followed bY Lloyds with a drop of 2.4 per...

By CUSTOS F r tin disappointing results of the joint stock banks confirm me in the belief I have held for the past six months that bank shares are today unattractive...

By ANGELA. NIILNE N EVER having read a satisfactory definition 'of this indefatigable phrase, I shall supply my own. If you are with it you are the opposite of against it (not,...

By GERARD FAY I HAvt: been in two of the coldest places in the world, Swedish Lapland and on the Yukon river just south of Alaska. On the Yukon, where I stayed in what remains...

More Help for Buyers By LESLIE ADRIAN The striking typographical improvement in the 9+ in. by 5 in. pages of CAT's magazine is not the only welcome sign that the consumer...