And thus the whirligig of time brings in its revenges. Connoisseurs of this phenomenon should be enjoying themselves at the moment. In the winter of 1973-4 the Labour party...

Ferdinand Mount Dear Prime Minister Wish you had been here, in a way, if only to show you a thing or two. On the other hand, think of the homely homilies and the nautical...

I was surprised to discover that the children of life peers are allowed by the Heralds to use the courtesy title 'honourable' in front of their names, just like the children of...

Auberon Waugh Like the Spectator's immensely distinguished television critic, I very seldom watch television if I can help it. This may be due in part to some disreputable...

Nicholas Ashford Johannesburg In no other Western democracy (or socalled democracy) has a political party been so successful in maintaining itself in power as the exclusively...

Scotland has for the moment gone mad. The preposterous and immoral scheme of paying the debts of shareholders in the City of Glasgow Bank through a gigantic lottery has taken...

Edward Marston West Berlin The men in the dock turn on their chairs, and break the legs off them. With broken chair legs in their hands they defend themselves against the...

Desmond Stewart Cairo Sunlit Egypt and bleak upland Persia have different religious traditions. The Shia, reverencing the prophet's physical descendants, have been...

David Gilmour Palermo In the main street of Partanna, a bleak, crumpled town in Western Sicily, stands an old stone palace. On one side of the main door a 'boutique' has been...

Christopher Booker I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas as much as I did — but I must admit that the experience has left me in thoughtful mood. Three weeks ago I left you all...

Brian Merriman Under the economic system of Eastern Europe, categories of manufactured goods are allocated on a regional basis. Some countries make tractors, others cameras,...

Patrick Marnham When she was awarded the Booker Prize last November, Iris Murdoch gave an interview in which she said: 'I am not a believer in the sense of believing in God the...

Nicholas Davenport The idea that gallant George Brown could solve the Iranian crisis by bravely going to have a chat with the Shah is no sillier than the idea that four Heads...

David Calleo For a generation after World War Two, a great many political theorists have made their reputations analysing the 'German disease,' an ailment that may more...

Sir: Geoge Gale's account of the Conservative dilemma (6 January) certainly provides sympathetic reading for Conservatives, like myself, appalled by the prospect of a long day's...

Sir: Benny Green asked 'when any man of acknowledged literary sensibility took Rider Haggard seriously as an artist' ('Easy rider', 6 January) and came up with Graham Green...

Sir: I have come rather late to Auberon Waugh's exercise in 'suspended indignation' with reference to Minehead. Waugh's article of 16 December contains the extraordinary...

Sir: John McEwen (9 December) fancies I am a charmer; apparently proven by his observation — 'who else would conclude an introductory note by wishing his art colleagues well'....

Sir: I write, with reference to the article 'Prince, Church and State' in your issue dated 30 December, to say that in my opinion whoever told John Grigg that HM The Queen is...

Sir: I greatly enjoyed reading Marjorie Wallace's highly amusing 'Storm in a Polish tea-cup', but I am afraid that she has got the wrong end of the stick as far as Polish...

Sir: Having set forth, in your magisterial 150th anniversary editorial, 'The truth behind the facts' (23 September, 1978), the aim and function of a weekly review to be to . . ....

Sir: I thoroughly appreciated the Samuel Brittan review of my book, The Way the World Works. I was pleased that you should give my book such notice, putting it in the hands of...

Sir: The Headmaster of Winchester asks (16 Dec). what has happened to make boys 'easier' in the sense that the anarchic revolutionary Sixties are in recession. I find this a...

Kenneth 0. Morgan The Age of Balfour and Baldwin 19021940 John Ramsden (Longman £13.00) The crushing Liberal electoral landslide of 1906 was widely thought to have extinguished...

Roger Stevens Iran: Dictatorship and Development Fred Halliday (Penguin £1.50) A Pelican Original by a member of the editorial board of the New Left Review; a STOP PRESS label...

Hans Ke!ler Anton von Webem: A Chronicle of his Life and Work Hans Moldenhauer in collaboration with Rosaleen Moldenhauer (Gollancz £20) Many years ago, I undertook a...

John McEwen The Legacy of Mark Rothko Lee Seldes (Secker £7.90) Almost rivalling Watergate as the American scandal of the 1970s is the Rothko case. Lee Seldes, the only...

THE ALLAH HACKBURIES', J.M. Barrie; 'A Designer's Trade' Gordon Russell. Alan Hollingsworth, 3 Llanvair Close, South Ascot, Berks. CAROLINE by Oliver Hill and John Comforth,...

Paul Ableman Final Payments Mary Gordon (Hamish Hamilton £4.95) 'I thought how easy it would be to kill a woman like that. Youcould lure hcr with coffee and doughnuts and then...

Alvar Lidell Some time ago I was invited by the BBC to contribute a talk to the occasional Radio 3 series entitled 'In Short'. I had little idea what to write but I found, as I...

Ted Whitehead Empire of Passion (Camden Plaza) Empire of Passion (X) is the second of a triptych of films by Nagisa Oshima on the subject of love. The third film is in...

Richard Ingrams Sometimes, I must say, I regret my complete lack of scientific knowledge. I have discovered a fatal flaw in my new television set which I'm sure that someone...

Rodney Milnes Hansel and Gretel (ENON, Leeds) Salome (Covent Garden) Der Rosenkavalier (Scottish Opera, Glasgow) In Scottish Opera's Hansel last year, the portrayal of the...

Benny Green Charlie Mingus, who died in Mexico at the weekend aged fifty-six, was one of those jazz musicians who succeeded so well in drawing attention to himself that at last...

Taki Gstaad The sine qua non of survival among snobs is — naturally — exclusivity. In the rarefied atmosphere of the Alps this clannishness takes the form of the private lunch...

Jeffrey Bernard Last week, the great barman in the sky called 'last orders' for Trevor Hughes. His death was fairly widely reported but it strikes me that Fleet Street in all...

Geoffrey Wheatcroft The retrospect of the All Blacks tour shown on television last Sunday was fascinating and prompts some reflections on Rugby, in particular on the state of...