The cost of the involvement of the United States in Indo-China has been appalling; but the cost of her involvement in the rest of South-East Asia has been minimal, and this is a...

From Lord Montagu of Beaulieu Sir: Mr Patrick Cormack's suggestion for a Royal Commission or Select Committee to consider the whole question of the national heritage is...

the Government's concern for the national heritage was voiced in general terms during the recent debates on the capital transfer tax, but adequate steps effectively to protect...

Economic Cony munity should take place as an aced!' mic exercise in which one claim 15 weighed against another, one theori contrasted with another, but as part an examination of...

letter which you published on March 22, Mr C. V. Porter challenge5 anti-Marketeers to state their 'alternt tive' to British membership of the E E ' In asking somebody to state...

Sir; r agree that the trouble with the ; j3u ntrY is spiritual, but I fail to see that It is due to socialism. Your editorial seemed to be about the decline of Fhristianity and...

Sir: Anger at your article on education ('The advance of the levellers', March 29) turned to despair when I discovered it was signed by an ex-headmaster. "Some direct grant...

Sir: With regard to the correspondence under the heading 'Financing Opera' (March 29), could I possibly enlist a fraction of the space to make a personal statement and ask a...

Sir: Your 'Will Waspe' does seem to love having a dig at the Young Vic. It seems a pity, but his opinion if of course his own. I should however like to put him and your columns...

Sir: I agree it was hard luck on the late Mr Jacque O'Hana, art dealer, that his gallery should be burgled so often, but I wonder how many of the artists whose works he...

Sir: 'Spectator's Notebook' (March 29) refers to the deplorable campaign in the 1960s by the Establishment against the late Dr Stephen Ward. May I as a former patient of his...

The obscure impulses of James Callaghan Patrick Cosgrave I have already noted in this column the contraction of vision on the part of British politicians over foreign policy;...

The decision of the South Vietnamese authorities to stop firmly the evacuation of any more war orphans and other infants from Sai g on is overdue. The conflict now drawin g...

Valerian Trendileft, MP, Of course, distrusts the EEC, That plutocratic enclave, which Ensures the interests of the rich. They threaten to deprive our nation Of Lovely...

An enormous envelope has fallen through my letter box addressed to Mrs H. Wilson, 10 Vincent Square, SW1. I don't know whether it is meant to be 10 Downing Street or 14 Vincent...

Nick Fitzfosse, who loves to shew upon Occasion all the little learning he has picked up, told us yesterday at the Club that there might be a great deal to be said for the...

Here is a new sport for student-bashers. It is called University Library-Bashing, and comes to The Spectator by courtesy of the National Book League who have just published a...

The Whiggery of Sir Keith Bill Jamieson There is a brilliant passage in the postscript to Friedrich Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty where the joint winner of last year's...

Euro-lobbying Richard Body, MP Rather a mischievous suspicion comes to one, sitting in the foyer of that huge edifice, Be rlaymont, that houses the thousands that Make up...

Caressing the colonels Piers Dixon "Punish a few of them and caress the rest." This tactful advice was given last month to the Karamanlis government, which somehow has to...

Brian Inglis The American Medical Association is complaining that its members in big cities are having to pay insurance premiums of $20,000 a year, to cover themselves against...

P . r elni some thousands of years BC until the r o eenth century, up in the high eastern ckies of what is now Wyoming, small scattered bands of people who called them: el ves...

Angela Huth Divorce The American Experience Joseph Epstein (Jonathan Cape f4.95) In 1915 an elite little band of 1,050 British married couples braced themselves for the...

Geoffrey McDermott Foreign Body In :The Eye, Charles MottRadclyffe (Leo Cooper £5.50) This `Memoir of the Foreign Service' in fact covers a wider field than that; `the' might...

The real thing Leon Garfield Penguin's Progress Jill Tomlinson (Methuen £1.05). The Worst Witch Jill Murphy (Allison and Busby £1.50) Going Rack Penelope Lively (Heinemann...

Denise Robins The Peppermint Pig Nina Bawden (Gollancz, £2.20) A Little Princess Frances Hodgson Burnett (Frederick Warne £1.95) Felicia The Critic Ellen Cornford (Hamish...

Gillian Freeman Heracles Penelope Farmer and Graham McCallum (Collins £2.95) All About Arthur Eric Carle (Dent £2.00) John Can Help lion Wikland (Dent 50p) Bird Adalbert Susi...

A Proper Place Joan Lingard (Hamish Hamilton £2.20) Z for Zachariah Robert C. O'Brien (Gollancz £1.75) Let me tell you a simple story. I was reading, the other day, a novel by a...

Happy endings Benny Green Children and Literature edited by Virginia Haviland (Bodley Head £2.80) The Search for Delicious Natalie Babbitt (Chatto and Windus £1.95) The Bridge...

Parent and school—the vital partnership Paul Griffin During the late 'sixties the heads of many schools, and in particular the headmasters of independent boys' schools, learnt...

Who's minding the 'baby? Terry Pitts Fenby Despite extensive publicity to drive home the dangers of leaving children alone, the NSPCC's latest annual catalogue of misery...

Cheque mate lain Scarlet Most people still seem to think that the worst crime they can commit is that of being found out. Any other can be easily, but privately, rationalised...

Towards sanity Bill Grundy A dog, I have it on the •Highest Authority, returneth to his vomit. think I need therefore make am apology for having another go at the only Fleet...

Too much to spend? Bernard Dixon This month the Science Research Council custodian of public funding for 'pure' science in Britain. makes an intriguing and costly decision....

Doubting Thomas Martin Sullivan "Thomas was not with them when Jesus came." This laconic sentence sets the scene for an interesting and human story, recorded only in the...

Poor devils Kenneth Hurren The Exorcism by Don Taylor ((Comedy Theatre) The Two of Me by Stanley PtliCe (Jeannetta Cochrane Theatre) Though I was not at the opening night of...

Gambles, gambols Kenneth Robinson The Gambier Director: Karel Reisz Stars: James Caan, Jacqueline Brooks, Lauren Hutton 'X' Universal (120 minutes). Monty Python and the Holy...

Boulez premiere John Bridcut Boulez the composer has recently been rather obscured by Boulez the conductor, but from September, when he returns to Paris after his stint with...

SirJack Callard on ICI's1974 results Addressing stockholders at the 48th Annual General Meeting of Imperial Chemical Industries Limited, held in London on April 2nd, the...

Nicholas Davenport Now that England has become ungovernable it is lucky that we have a prime minister who doesn't try to govern. Suppose he had tried to stop the visit of...

Get your discount here Bernard Hollowood We could do with a little more honesty in financial advertising. Well, no, not honesty exactly, more realism perhaps. Local...