Coming out of the closet F ord workers began their first all-out strike for ten years after refusing to accept the company's latest 'final' three-year pay offer. British Coal...

THE House of Commons has voted to allow television cameras into its chamber. Many members have been pushing for this over the past 30 years; feelings run very high. Mr Joe...

AN AFFORDABLE STRIKE blazing braziers, back at their old trade. It's all out, brothers. But calmer heads can see what a false guide the 1978-9 winter is for present times. The...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY - Save 15% on the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for f (Equivalent SUS & Ettrocheques accepted) RATES 12...

Time for all good loonies to come to the aid of the party NOEL MALCOLM Clearly, Mr Kinnock is not a man who likes to be distracted. If you ask what it is that he doesn't want...

PETER LEVI G ilbert Murray's biography has prompted the thought that the study of Greek as a common pursuit of our culture is a lost cause that fittingly survives in Oxford. The...

The Nicaraguan ruling party has become a militaristic clique. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports on how the real peasant revolution has put its force behind the Contras Managua...

Thomas S. Arms analyses the Islamic fundamentalist forces vying to replace Soviet control GORBACHEV has announced it. The proposed date for 115,000 red troops to start...

Diana Geddes on the rising chances of M. Mitterrand winning seven more years in office Paris `CAN he be beaten?' political pundits are asking of President Mitterrand. Only a...

THE Session was opened on Thursday with a Message from the Queen even more than usually colourless. Nothing is said in it as to the probabilities of war. The Queen is friendly...

Margaret's men: a profile of Malcolm Rifkind, the Scottish Secretary This is one of a series of profiles of men the Prime Minister admires. MRS THATCHER admires Scotland's...

Michael Trend questions the Government's closed-door policy towards Tibet HIS Holiness the Dalai Lama is to pay one of his rare visits to Britain from 5 to 13 April: this has...

56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 01-405 1706 Telex: 27124 )u-vi fitubdli itZor, In recent years the circulation of The Spectator has grown fast. In 1984 it was...

A sentence in 'The cult of the Agnellis' by Rupert Scott (30 January) was garbled. It should have read, 'In August 1987 the French magazine L'Evenement du Jeudi claimed that a...

PRIVATE RIGHT The media: Paul Johnson argues that privacy must be protected by law WE are at the beginning of an era in which Parliament, in response to public demand, is...

Sir: Before advocating an insurance-based NHS (Leading article, 23 January), please think carefully — and take a look at the our European neighbours who have it. Yes, their...

Sir: I am saddened that Paul Johnson should feel that the Six O'Clock News on the night of the Birmingham bomb appeal was deliberately partial. As an analysis of the contents of...

Sir: In his article, 'The racism of Black Africa' (6 February), Mr Andrew Kenny, writing about the genocide in Burundi, says: This atrocity produced not one peep of protest...

and Burundi, is that we know very much more about the former. We may have been in South Africa ourselves or we have friends there or recently come from there, perhaps on both...

nationalism obsolete TIM CONGDON E conomic nationalism, one of the most powerful and destructive forces in the 20th century, is becoming obsolete. Trade and finance are so...

MARTIN JACOMB T he 16 months since Big Bang have been an amazing period; an outstandingly strong run in the last phase of the bull market before 19 October with huge trad- ing...

Nomura reads the riot act to Uncle Sam JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE Now that we in Britain are essentially pawns on the global economic chessboard, it is educational to sit from time to...

Reverend Mother warns her feckless girls against the perils of prudence CHRISTOPHER FILDES We can see it coming, but when it arrives it must still shock. This month brings the...

From boy scout to myth Colin Welch HERGE AND TINTIN, REPORTERS by Philippe Goddin translated by Michael Farr Sundancer, f.25 I first met Tintin near Tildonk in Bel- gium in...

John Hackett THE KOREAN WAR by Max Hastings Michael Joseph, f14.95 T he Korean War, so much oversha- dowed by the even greater, and on the home front so much more intimately...

The comedian had terrible health most of his forty years. Wealth and success were modest and painful. In fact his bronchial cough was part of the act. James Simmons

Andreas Whittam Smith THE FINANCIAL TIMES: A CENTENARY HISTORY by David Kynaston Viking, £25 I f there be experts on the subject of the Financial Times, I might be counted...

Anita Brookner THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES by Tom Wolfe Cape, LI2.95 T his is the modern era and nobody understands it yet', says one of the wiser characters in Tom Wolfe's...

Rupert Christiansen THE ROYAL OPERA HOUSE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY by Frances Donaldson Weidenfeld & Nicolson, L16.95 A n atmosphere of crisis is essential to the success of...

James Lees-Milne THE CLASSICAL COUNTRY HOUSE IN SCOTLAND, 1660-1800 by James Macaulay Faber, f25 E ven Sir John Summerson's compre- hensive Architecture in Britain 1530-1830...

Fool, said my Muse, don't look into that heart For it is an imaginary part. As to the past, the best is to be dumb And of the future say: It's still to come. The present,...

Tom McGurk STALKER by John Stalker Harrap, £12.95 F rom day one in Northern Ireland, the portents were inauspicious for Greater Manchester's Deputy Chief of Constabul- ary,...

Exhibitions Lucian Freud (Hayward Gallery, till 17 April) Giotto's mordant heir Giles Auty D uring this century the history of painting in Britain has not been short of...

White Mischief (`18', selected cinemas) Belgravia in the bush Hilary Mantel T here is an unsavoury ditty which runs through Michael Radford's film: 'E is for everyone hot and...

books from Thames & Hudson: Lucian Freud, Paintings (£24.00) and Lucian Freud, Works on Paper (£20.00).

Bring back Marceau Adrian Dannatt samples some of the events at the London International Mime Festival A t the end of the film Tootsie, Dustin Hoffman is striding through...

Sadlers Wells till 20 February. David Glass is presenting a retrospective of ten years' work at the Bloomsbury Theatre till 13 February; he will be at the Albany Empire 17-20...

Germany's domination Peter Phillips 0 f the several musicians from the past whose posthumous reputations might re- commend them to us in their anniversary year, I suspect that...

Greenery- yallery Ursula Buchan T hose who have been paying strict attention may wonder why it is that the phrase 'house plant' has never once fea- tured in this column. That...

Celebrity grill Wendy Cope I n last Monday's Guardian a Tewkes- bury firm advertised for a Middleweight Writer with Heavyweight Potential. If they had meant it literally, I...

Poetic licence Jeffrey Bernard I am a little disappointed that the prop- rietors of this distinguished journal didn't have the wit to send me to Sydney for the Australian...

Writer's block Taki I 've been a good boy all week, laying off the booze and staying away from Annabel's and Tramp, but the Ballad of Pentonville Gaol is doing a Schubert's...

All in the mind Alice Thomas Ellis I was talking to an afflicted friend on the telephone the other day and as I concluded the conversation and turned away I said...

A WEEK full of incident awaits us. Sunday will be dear old and banished Valentine's day, and Tuesday is 'Shrove', pancake day when a lot of curious races and traditional rites...

or almost £30 on The Spectator If you're forced to share The Spectator with fellow students, then you'll know how difficult it can be to track a copy down. Now you can save...

To enable competitors to economise on postage, entries for one or more weeks of the Competition and Crossword may be posted together under one cover addressed 'Competition...

I HAVE never been able to work out why Notting Hill is so badly served for res- taurants. Since I live there (or rather, in its more downmarket reaches) my interest is fuelled...

Clichés from the box Jaspistos I N Competition No. 1509 you were invited to provide an extract from a sport- ing commentary rich in clichés. This was, I acknowledge, a male-...

Myomancy Raymond Keene The best laid schemes o' mice an' men. (Burns) T St John, New Brunswick hose practising the art of divination before the start of the Candidates'...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

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In one of those omniscient articles, I learnt that the five things people dream about most are: doors, teeth, mountains, snakes and the Queen. A narrative poem of a dream,...