The resignation of Mr Brain Faulkner as leader of the Unionist Party in Ulster, though predicted, is deeply to be regretted. Whether he can now sustain his position as head of...

The extensive series of arrests carried out in London last week should remove any lingering doubts about the seriousness with which the Government takes its newly accepted task...

It has not taken Mr Cyril Smith, the redoubtable Liberal member for Rochdale, long to !zlemonstrate to the press how wrong they were in deciding to cast him in the role of that...

With uncharacteristic lack of decisiveness, the Israeli electorate has piled up more problems for its own future by declining to give a clear mandate to any of the groups...

Sir: So, according to Mr Cosgrave (December 22), who is voicing both his own belief and that of others, a group, perhaps, Britain is heading for a military dictatorship, or...

his colleague are or were in suggesting (December 22) that the existing Parliament might be extended to avoid holding a general election; but if the Government were to introduce...

Sir: The folly of EEC membership for us in the British Isles. I wish to congratulate The Spectator on its consistent opposition to Britain's membership of this quite unsuitable...

Sir: This is a sad day for the children of our country. Today we take away from already deprived and underprivileged children much of the wonderment which belongs only to...

Sir: Bookbuyer's piece on The Auberon Waugh Memorial Prize (December 22) which I was very glad to see — contained, as usual, a couple of his endearing errors. The name of my...

From: Lt. Commander Noel PaulleY Sir: It is doubtful if our country has been worse governed this century; Having debauched the currency an reduced its purchasing power to ah...

Sir: Although Mr Paul Bard (December 8) may suspect Dr B0Ys° 1 of a red-neck conspiracy again% students it is difficult to find h l r , reasons for believing that Dr BoYsh,,:;...

Sir: You were good enough, some Months ago, to print two or three letfr's of mine which argued that inflation and deflation can be controlled. at Will be varying the supply of...

'Sir: I enjoy Mr Beverley Nichols's l a ) triusing column, but I think he has een misled about Mediterranean Weather (November 24). People looking for sun in winter should...

,From: Major D. C. Hawley. Sir: While I hesitate to detract from Bill Grundy's admirable piece on the Lobby system (December 22) he might like to know that arson in Her...

Sir: I should like to thank you for the front page article 'Christmas lamentations' (December 22). The Spiritual sanity of its message is absolutely to the point, and it is so...

The French have a saying that to govern is to foresee. By this standard we have no governors. Other essential qualities in any Cabinet are sensitive political antennae and...

The General Election Show I l atrick Cosgrave In the last week — and particularly since the announcement of a recall of Parliament, not to mention Lord Carrington's somewhat...

Ganging up against Israel Lionel Gelber Israel may have been taken by surprise when Arab states attacked her on the Day of Atonement, October 6, 1973, but in their behaviour,...

Dtiri hi ly TrelVelS .111 the Orient, I observed tiat rici Mit of titosc well-eouttuetect Resions are conveyed, from Place ft, Pim& in small Csrls, called Ruk - Sliatts,pullott...

It is reported that in the present economic troubles there has been a notable decline in bank robberies For this at least be thanks Bank-robbers lose their jobs. The reason is...

Only the navy David W. Wragg Social service spending is the sacred cow of our society, demanding not only regula r increases but increases of such a high order that they can...

Welcome delay for re-think Russell Lewis In the present state of financial stringency the C overnment's decision last October to postP°rie the Maplin development for two years...

The death of Sir Denis Brogan deeply distressed all his friends and admirers in journalistic, academic and many other circles. A renowned expert on American and French history,...

Labour's new plans Michael Hatfield The reason why Labour's vaguely termed moderates have conspicuously failed to stand up and be counted, the cynical theory has it, is...

Boat Show blues Oliver Stewart For studying the commercial results of this Year's boat show the final figures must be awaited. Great feats were certainly performed in...

"Parliament had doused its light, For the feast of Yu-ell, When Toniben came into sight Gathering winter fu-ell." Thus carolling moodily away, Puzzle remembered that Parliament...

Law and order in the schools Rhodes Boyson The attentive observer of our social and educational scene have noted the coincidence 01 timing between the suicide of Tina Wilson...

Voice from the past Martin Sullivan "I have in my dining room a good contemporary portrait of Donne, the poet and Dean of St Paul's from 1621 to 1631. It is not the face of an...

Terminal tact John Linklater A hundred years ago when medicine was taught largely by apprenticeship and when the functions of the body were still • being imperfectly...

Sung, though not honoured Pamela Vandyke Price During the darker of my school days I would try and hope that the grown-up world wasn't whollY dominated by f . . fools and ih ....

Cold comfort Peter Quince It is always a relief when a spell of damp, muddy weather suddenly gives way to days of hard frost and clear skies. The most tolerant of us grow...

Richard Luckett on the aesthete who became a saint In one of his Godly Discourses Spit - en Kierkegaard explores Christ's injunction to "consider the lilies of the field." The...

Peter A ckr oyd O li a.Ys Eva Figes (Faber and Faber £2.25) Mirror Harriet Waugh (Weidenfeld Nicholson £2.50) Lae Death of Attila Cecelia Holland (Hodder ti Stoughton £2.50)...

A.L.Rowse Queen Katherine Parr Anthony Martienssen (Secker and Warburg 0.75) It is a symptom of the time that reading — and writing — history is so popular. And, indeed, what...

William Sargant Ritual in Industrial Society. A Sociolog ic analysis of ritualism in modern Engl a % Robert Bocock. (George Allen and VIV I-. £4.00). This may or may not be a...

Angus Wilson 'Wild Thyme, Winter Lightning Anne Mulkeen (Hamish Hamilton £3.00) Miss Mulkeen's book is subtitled 'The Symbolic Novels of L. P. Hartley '. It is, as the...

Kay Dick Sir Horace Rumbold: Porkait of a Diplomat Martin Gilbert (Heinemann £8.00) Horace Monta g ue Rumbold, ninth Baronet (1869-1941), the subject of Martin Gilbert's...

Patrick Cosgrave Rommel Charles Douglas-Home (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £2.95) Rommel, Field Marshal Auchinleck wrote, was neither a magician nor a bogeyman. In the same message...

Who's Who in Africa John Dickie and Allan Rake (African Development £9.00). nbelievably, with this title, there is no name Index; there is no index at all. Contents are a list...

A few bad eggs 8 enny Green „lam certainly not the first reader, and I doubt m ve rY much if I will be the last, to discover that great difficulty about getting to grips with...

Bookend A new year generally brings new publishers and this one is no exception. Two promising imprints launch themselves this month, both blessed with solid financial backing...

OF THE ARTS Kenneth Hurren on melodramatising Sherlock Holmes This is no place to look, I had best confess at the outset, for the unerring exposure of any irregularities...

Big eaters Christopher Hudso Since that famous occasion tea years ago in Tom Jones when a girl bit into an apple and looked hungrily across the table at Albert Finney there...

racial I nsults are an important part of his c harm: they reflect in little what is t t li e . least remarked of his character his vaulting imagination. if.ednesday night's...

One alone Robin Young At the turn of the year the ballet critic is likely to succumb to fits of jealousy against his colleagues in other departments. It is especially galling...

star of BBCTV's The Onedirt Line, wants to bow out of the series after the current batch of episodes is wrapped up this month. Waspe sympathises, but hopes Gilmore knows...

Oil and monopoly power tichololas Davenport S ocialists who would rightly d enounce businessmen for using Monopoly power to advance prices and profits are naturally loathe to...

It would be nice to pretend I'd spent the past fortnight in the Kentucky grasslands surveying the ups and downs of Secretariat's stud career or perhaps on a lightning run round...

I see that my friend Kenneth Fleet, the brilliant City Editor of the Daily Telegraph, has been saying some very unwise things indeed about City reform. Going even so far as to...