But if the battle lines are clear enough, the intelligent layman may be forgiven for being far less than clear about what is really at issue. It is that world prosperity and...

A US report states that a gigantic mirror may be put into the Vietnam sky to provide both sun- light and moonlight for twenty-four hours a day. All in a hot and copper sky The...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY By ALAN WATKINS There is no end to the Captain's enterprise. He now has girl-jugglers stationed at each corner of his platform. They throw up and catch...

From MALCOLM RUTHERFORD S Count VIETNAM is not very much bigger than En g land and Wales. This fact began to dawn on me when I realised that flying times about the country were...

AMERICA — I From D. W. BROGAN month, and I arrived exactly eight months after I left it in April 1966. I am used to the volatile character of American life, to the degree to...

AMERICA —2 From MURRAY KEMPTON NEW YORK general tone of the journalism which re- sponded to Jack Ruby's death was that he had achieved what he had always wanted, which was to...

TORIES IN TRANSITION - 2 By DAVID HOWELL, MP A FTER the 1868 election defeat, Disraeli appointed John Gorst to reorganise Con- servative support. At the centre political power...

RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL BARBADOS, JANUARY 7, 1967 DEAR The Monopolies Commission saw fit in their recent report to give a great deal of advice to Lord Thomson and to Mr Denis...

By SIMON RAVEN Now Angeline was sweet sixteen And always dancing on the village green. A virgin still She'd never had a thrill: Poor little Angeline. CO ran the first verse...

January 12, 1867 The Russian Government has at last made an end officially of Poland. By three decrees dated 19th December (0.S.) the Czar merges Poland in Russia. destroys her...

This, it seems, is the choice that at present splits the Cabinet—not, understandably, on a left v. right basis, but liberal Labour v. illiberal Labour. Those ministers who...

EDUCATION By DAVID ROGERS But Plowden has excelled the lot. All the right words have been used—top priority for a national programme; expansion of nursery schools; smaller...

By DONALD McLACHLAN OST newspapers this week have been offer- ing a rather confusing and confused pic- ture of the so-called Chinese 'cultural revolution.' Covering China is,...

CONSUMER'S GUIDE TO THE PROFESSIONS —4 By R. A. CLINE .nur can I choose my counsel? I always El understood I had to accept the counsel chosen for me by my solicitor.' The...

By JOHN ROWAN WILSON Tr is no joke to have the entire wolf-pack of 'British puritanism baying at your heels, and anyone who claims to have a revulsion from anyone who claims...

AFTERTHOUGHT By JOHN WELLS HAVING nothing very much to think about the other day until the air hostess reached me with her pre-rehearsed smile and pre-packed plastic tray of...

Snt,—Having spent some time studying the printing industry in the United States, I would confirm Mr Bangsbcrg's assessment (Letters, December 30), that the newspaper unions'...

SIR,—Bruce Douglas-Mann's account of recent prose- cutions for indecency and obscenity (December 30) could also have mentioned the strange case of the Brighton church...

SIR,—John Rowan Wilson's article on consultants (January 6) appears to have been compounded from a study of the works of Richard Gordon and A. J. Cronin. A doctor chooses the...

SIR,—Mr Donald McLachlan, as one would expect of him, produces a well-reasoned argument to sup- port his belief (SPECTATOR. January 6) that 'news- papermen, especially those...

30) is a fair and helpful guide, but limitations of space have inevitably led him to generalise. I hope your readers will not be led to think that, if they want help and advice...

SIR,—It is not easy to understand Mr Heckstall- Smith's difficulty (Letters, January 6). It is, of course, true that Acton, along with Cardinal Newman, Bishop Dupanloup,...

presumably intended, from your contributor Simon Raven's hopes for the New Year. While it is good to discourage naivety and mis- leading euphemisms, his tone seems to me...

SIR.—'Have a chat with the vicar and the chemist' used to be my advice when a patient, who was about to leave the district, consulted me about the choice of a new doctor. We...

SIR,—If Ludovic Kennedy really believes that a mili- tary operation against Rhodesia could be 'mounted next week, and the rebellion ended the week after' ('Symposium on 1967,'...

11.111M5 1 1 0 nr .EMIVCPA From: S. P. de Paris, Frederick C. Gillman, Peter Barnard, Tim Vane, Dr J. R. Oddie, Dr W. I. D. Scott, Arnold Wexler, Commander P. M. Bliss, Mrs A....

considerable interest, I am sure, by your readers; as were, likewise, his little critics' views as embodied in their letters published in your issue of December 30. Mr Dossetor...

Sta,—In reading the SPECTATOR these seven years and in visiting this country for the third time in four years, I have been struck by the recent increase in sympathetic interest...

RECORDS By CHARLES REID wo massive new opera recordings have given me and my turntable much to get devoted and busy about. First : Otto Klemperer's Don Giovanni (HMV, eight...

SIR,—Surely a female priest (Letters, January 6) should officially be called a clergywoman, and col- loquially a parsonette? Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Bristol 8 PETER FLINN

Snails March Past p ERHAPS the saddest thing about the new Chaplin film is that the easiest, likeliest reac- tion to it is also the most unwelcome. I don't mean hard criticism:...

THEATRE And yet this is not an isolated lapse. It is a curious fact that at some point during the past year nearly all our serious, non-commercial com- panies have felt the need...

ART By BRYAN ROBERTSON nARIS has at last risen to the occasion, and r on the grandest scale conceivable. The three exhibitions staged as a French official act of homage to the...

By J. H. PLUMB I T is a pity. This book,* so profoundly impor- tant, will not be read by LBJ nor McNamara nor Dean Rusk. Not that they will be singular. It will not find its...

RALPH ELI,ISON'S Invisible Man was invisible 'because people refuse to see me . . . it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they...

By a quirk of coincidence, the first copies of Charles Davis's new book arrived at the pub- lishers on the day he announced his decision to leave the Roman Catholic priesthood...

Four steps cut in the snow. I mounted; on the right Four blobs of tired blue. (The wind is tough: lean out.) I felt snow stroke my boot, Then crunch, submit. Descending (take...

NEW YORK LETTER By M. L. ROSENTHAL O tsre. of the most confident predictions one jean make for 1967 (American literary division) is that l'aflaire William L. Manchester v. the...

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL once described the late Victorian decades as 'an age of great men and small events.' It is doubtful if this description could be defended on a number of...

The Brontë Letters. Selected and with an intro- duction by Muriel Spark. (Macmillan, 25s.) LETTERS are written conversation, exchanges between one person and another,...

Trial By Battle. By David Piper. (Collins, 21s.) The Man in the Glass Booth. By Robert Shaw. (Chatto and Windus, 21s.) The Sailor from Gibraltar. By Marguerite Duras. (Calder...

THE EgeNtilf VROM Con By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT (NF all the recent changes in the non-Cabinet kjmembers of the Government, perhaps the most significant were the two new...

By CUSTOS E new year optimism in the stock markets evaporated this week. After thirteen sessions of rising prices this was only to be expected. By and large industrial equity...

CONSUMING INTEREST By L ESLIE ADRIAN MR NORMAN Sr JOHN- STEvAs has denounced the electric toothbrush, while Mr Bernard Levin has an- nounced publicly that he owns one. What...

By JOHN BULL H ow moral a place is the City these days? The question is prompted by the sight of so many boards of directors and their advisers steering their way into—or out...

HOLIDAY TRAVEL From ANDREW ROBERTSON W HEN I watched the Home Secretary, Mr Roy Jenkins, opening the new office build- ing of Horizon Holidays a few days after his Cabinet...

No. 317 ALPARTHAURMY (3rd Prize, BCF Tourney Ito WHITE to play and mate in two moves: solution next week. Solution to No. 316 (Havel): R - Kt 2 1 , threat 2 Q - Kt S ch, K...

No. 125 ACROSS.-r Mark out. 5 Boodel. 9 Doublet. to Nirvana. it Madagascar. 12 Tara. 13 Pal. 14 Diplomatist. 17 Paying gue+1. !y Lee. 20 Quit. 22 Flat-footed. 26 Eaglets. 27...

ACROSS 1. Go halves? (6) 4. Pbrtia's calling (8) to. By which to get the measure of years on the land? (7) it. It's a bit thick for the water-colourist (7) 12.. Professor in the...