Reagan's Last Stand D ear Editor and Readers,' Lord Rothschild wrote to the Daily Telegraph: `Since at least 1980 up to the present time there have been innuendoes in the press...

IT MAY depend on the definition of `important', but Lord Rothschild's denial that he had ever been a Soviet agent was the first time an important letter appeared in the Daily...

FOR more than a year Roger Cooper, who has written many pieces for the Spectator about the Middle East, has been impris- oned, without being charged, in Teheran. On Monday of...

WRIGHT: THE WRONG FIGHT A s the Wright case continues in the Australian courts, sympathy for the British Government has grown. The initial surge of pleasure at the discomfiture...

AFTER a hotly contested election, Dr Rod Hackney, the advocate of community architecture, has secured the presidency of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He deserves...

The destabilising influence of exploding slurry FERDINAND MOUNT T he time has come to address ourselves to Mr Denis Healey and the Affair of the Exploding Slurry. The Labour...

PETER LEVI with a front-page photograph the bizarre but charming opening ceremony of the Swan Theatre at Stratford. Mr Frederick Koch, who is American, gave two million pounds...

The immense implications of not giving Lisa three bears for Christmas AUBERON WAUGH C hristmas in Grub Street means more than writing hysterical, fatuous and unin- formed...

Alexandra Artley explores the streets of King's Cross and discovers what poverty means for the homeless and for families living in bed-and-breakfast hotels HIGH frivolity,...

John Ralston Saul sees in the violence in Paris more than student disturbance Paris REASSURANCE is what most people want in the wake of disorder and violence. It would...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports on the fighting between the Sandinistas, the Contras and Honduras Managua THE day of 'La Purisima' was celebrated on Sunday. For the religious...

Richard West witnesses divisions in the religion of South Africa's rulers Stellenbosch THE Afrikaans Sunday paper Rapport devoted most of its first two pages to the, for them,...

WHAT THINK THEY OF CHRIST? Successful people go to church more often, but what do they believe in? Andrew Gimson reports MOST of the British believe in God, but only one in...

THE 151 respondents were drawn from the City, business and industry, the trade unions, press and television, the universities, the law, medicine, the arts, the Civil Service and...

My Lords, may I ask the Minister [Baroness Hooper] whether she recalls that this Question uses the expression 'junk food'? Can she tell us what junk food is, so that I may tell...

European Community (Research and Development), 3 December 1986 Alan Howarth (Stratford on Avon, Conservative): The history of agricul- ture alternates between feast and famine....

Nicholas Budgen finds a new and inflationary mood in the Tory Party IN HIS evidence before the Treasury Select Committee the Chancellor demons- trated the inconsistencies of...

Dr Thomas Stuttaford examines the fatal treatment of George V and its implications today A FEW years ago the wife of a well-known author tried to enlist my support for her...

IRISH beggars are still eminently com- plimentary . . . . A most assuming vag- rant of this type is Micheal L—, whose witty sayings, which rise incessantly and spontaneously to...

Profile. - David Graham, the television entrepreneur behind The New Enlightenment FEW viewers of the polemical series The New Enlightenment, currently propound- ing the ideas...

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...

that a new title without editorial personality will fail THE most valuable quality a newspaper can possess is a clear editorial identity, which readers and advertisers...

Yomping to market from New Court to a cosy Rookery Nook CHRISTOPHER FILDES T he wail of pipes through the ancestral courts of the Rothschilds signalled the departure of their...

ARGUING with Sir Martin Jacomb is a mug's game. Chancery barrister turned merchant banker, chairman of Barclays' investment bank, first choice to head the Securities and...

THOSE who would think it a seasonal gesture not to tax the Christmas message should say so on a card to Lord Cockfield, in Brussels. As European Commissioner for Internal...

IT IS a sad sign of such times that a respected City editor has told his staff that he proposes to forbid them to own any shares directly, and to extend the ban to their wives...

The good ship Europa heads into the icepack JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE I mportant decisions,' as the Prime Minister sensibly reminded us at the end of last weekend's London...

Sir: For 40 years I have been attending the Frankfurt Book Fair in the company of about 1,000 British publishers each year. I see them at the Fair, I see them at parties, I see...

who visit Germany give a Nazi salute, and do a Hitler imper- sonation, at one time or other during the trip'. How many who served in the BAOR especially during those dog days of...

Sir: Richard West in his report 'Black and white down under' (22 November) asserts that there was a revival of the so-called `White Australia' policy in 1975, when `hundreds of...

Sir: I am grateful to Dr David Carlton (`Libya, yes — Iran, no', 22 November) for his generous comment on the revised edition of my book Terrorism and the Liberal State....

Sir: Mr Rhodes James's acquaintances now seem to be "earing things' (Frank Johnson, Diary, 29 November). There has been no `acrimonious private correspondence' be- tween him and...

Sir: As a Ghanaian and a regular Spectator reader, I take exception to M. Fraser- Allen's letter 'Flight of fancy' in your 15 November issue. What is this letter intended to...

Sir: Christopher Silvester's letter (6 De- cember) refers to Frank Johnson's 'legen- dary social vice of meanness'. This is a disgraceful smear. From long and enjoy- able...

Sir: Congratulations to Ian Waller on his excellent article on the Channel Tunnel (Tire down below', 22 November). As he rightly emphasises there is a real danger that crucially...

Sir: I wonder if Mr Graham Greene can shed any light on the proceedings in Australia? Near the end of Brighton Rock, Ida Arnold . . sang softly to herself over the stout — "One...

Sir: Christopher Fildes is wrong to suggest (City and Suburban, 28 November) that insider traders steal from their employers. Those who are defrauded are the other individuals...

in discussing the Channel Tunnel. The design of the Channel Tunnel and the shuttle service starts off from an inhenrently safe tunnel, track, signalling and power supply...

Stemming the tide ANTI-RACISM: AN ASSAULT ON EDUCATION AND VALUE edited by Frank Palmer Sherwood Press, f9.95 I am often oppressed by the suspicion that no one responsible...

David Ekserdjian CCW hat is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or con- versations?" ' The art book, with its inevit- able double-act of plates and text,...

My house, named for the Saxon spring, Stands by the sour farmyard, the long- Dry lip that once was Sibard's Well Buried beneath a winding-stone To stop the cattle falling in;...

Andrew Lownie CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE by Barrie Penrose and Simon Freeman Grafton, £14.95 T he enduring popular image of Anthony Blunt probably relies heavily on the press...

Mary Keen S ir Roy Strong is the Director of the V & A and his special subject is the Renaiss- ance. He jogs in Herefordshire at weekends. Robin Lane Fox, just as versa- tile...

Juliet Townsend As co-proprietor of a bookshop, I cannot recommend too highly the attitude to Christmas present giving shown by one of our customers. She enters the shop each...

`No doctor has put his finger on what is wrong with him, and he has had every medical test under the sun. He's not unhappy, and his mind works very well. He's withdrawn, that's...

Musee d'Orsay An amazing museum full of holes Bruce B ernard T he façade of the Musee d'Orsay, formerly the most elegant railway station in Paris or perhaps anywhere, smiled a...

Brighton Beach Memoirs (Aldwych) A Mouthful of Birds (Royal Court) Multiple focus Christopher Edwards T his is a transfer of the National Theatre's first class production of...

Edward Wolfe (Odette Gilbert till 10 January 1987) Italian and Flemish Paintings and Sculpture, French and Spanish Paintings (Colnaghi's till 23 December) Lyricism lost...

SEASIDE LITHOGRAPHS ALAN POWERS Alan Powers' "Views of the South Coast", eight lithographs of the Kent and Sussex seaside commissioned specially by the Spectator, and...

Eat the Peach (`PO', selected cinemas) Do they dare? Peter Ackroyd T here was the vague sound of shillelagh somewhere in the opening chords and, despite some scenes of modern...

Carmen (ENO, Coliseum) Carmen (Scottish Opera, Newcastle) Carmina variegata Rodney Milnes I f proof were needed of the unquench- able vitality of Carmen, then seeing these...

Doing the flowers Ursula Buchan C hristmas is the, season of anxiety. In our house the vexed question of whether we think Father Christmas physically cap- able of carrying a...

Boiled to an epic Wendy Cope B ack in the Sixties, when one of my flatmates applied for a job with an adver- tising agency, she was asked to make a list of all the uses she...

Bucks for blinners Taki never thought I'd live long enough to see Anthony Haden-Guest throw a grand party for. . . 2,000 of his closest friends, but not only did I see it, I...

Dangerous ladies Jeffrey Bernard T hose foolish young men, members of the Dangerous Sports Club, who jump off the Clifton Suspension Bridge on the end of elastic ropes and who...

Patronising patterns Alice Thomas Ellis S ometimes life seems so short it's barely worth putting one's name in the telephone book and other times it seems to be going on for...

Novelties in port LATE October in the Douro: mist rises from the water and covers it in an eider- down of cloud reaching halfway up the steep sides of the valley, until the...

Mrs Beeton as, if not muse exactly, then inspiration. As far as most foreigners are concerned, English food, notwithstanding the eminent Victo- rians in the kitchen, means...

Vice verse Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1450 you were asked for a poem in praise of one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Judging by the size of the entry, Pride successfully roused...

0 ah 1 moniammaimarm OndlnlanARDOERM hi el glaallarliMliPe . rin, Emma F . nos enean I rinErgri 13 0 KM pun , on T d H 0 a On E rprvorrErime op,. E I NG e0 u II -0...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £12.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

Mrs Thatcher, no longer in active politics, has written a book on a most unexpected subject. Title, please, and newspaper or magazine review (maximum 150 words). Entries to...

Triple gold Raymond Keene A fter the exertions of the world cham- pionship one might have expected Kaspar- ov to ease up during the Dubai Olympics. With a team consisting of...