Mr Jack Jones's undeniable triumph at Blackpool was undoubtedly considerable comfort to the Prime Minister, whose total conviction is that he can defeat inflation only if his...

Sir: Whenever a political cause becomes the object of popular enthusiasm, that cause tends to become obscured by idealism. One can readily understand Conservative enthusiasm...

amazing call to arms from Michael Calvert, addressed to "young men of affluence in Britain today who are bored and lack belief in their leaders and government" urging them to...

any large scale, likely to encourage civil war, rather than the orderly establishment of social democracy: One thinks of Spain — of Chile — of Vietnam — and of Cambodia!)....

Sir: May 1 contribute three ayes,and one no after reading the Letters to the Editor (August 23) on how to improve the Spectator. 1. I agree with Lord Shinwell, who calls for...

divers activists, the politically committed, with a very few truly detached intellectually. All publications such as yours, must inevitably expose a distinctive identity over...

The Spectator's magic is in priding itself on its courage to change its mind? Don't we read it for the pleasure of disagreeing and for knowing that our grumbles will be taken in...

could start by printing it in black upon white instead of grey upon grey. A more easily legible type-face and the return of Auberon Waugh from his present exile would be two...

Sir: I would like to draw your attention to Robert Ashley's article (August 30) headed "Losing sales in a 'growth' market", in which he implies that it is "better to go for...

From Lord Houghton of Sower - by' Sir: The six aborted fetuses in the propaganda advertisement you publish from LIFE (August 30) first appeared in The Spectator four years ago,...

Sir: With the recent introduction of Capital Transfer Tax I have been reluctantly compelled to resign from the Revenue; I would appreciate your letting me say why through your...

Sir: Having no interest in Mr Wilson's , views on even the weather, I did not listen to his broadcast. But against a background of government borrowings of £25 million a day I...

Sir: Surely Patrick Crabtree is being misleading when he asserts (August 16) that "Esperanto is used as a second language in most countries of the world." A second language, in...

From Dr K. Liddell Sir: John Linklater in his recent article (August 23) very properly draws attention to the sagging NHS hospital service and woos the general practitioners by...

From Professor C. A. W. Manning Sir: This week's press tributes to the former Emperor of Ethiopia have duly highlighted that historic occasion when the venerable African...

Sir: It is not fashionable these days to say anything favourable about what used to be the (British) Empire. Perhaps I ought to start by explaining that one of the reasons why I...

Sir: Interesting that defenders of the Americanism 'gay' for the homosexual racket (August 30) claim justification by citing its minor connotations of vice and social...

Sir: John 'Buchan used, I believe, to work for The Spectator. He deserves a better centenary tribute than that accorded to him by Mr Benny Green. I was not even born in 1940 —...

Bourbon on the rocks Patrick Cosgrave In Scotland last week Mr Heath and Mrs Thatcher clashed yet again. There was, it is clear, no more than fortune in the fact that both of...

The National Enterprise Board, we are assured, is intended to be a lifeline for our wretched economy. When it was first mooted, we were warned that the NEB would be given...

Getting people taped Hugh Macpherson A couple of years ago doctors in Sussex received a pamphlet from the Health Department of the county council which might well have come...

The conservative alternative Robert Moss The removal of General Vasco Goncalves at the end of last week is the best bit of news from Portugal this year, but it is not...

Another last chance? Rawle Knox Whatever your feelings of disgust, fury, or boredom (or even simple interest) about Northern Ireland, you must have noticed that the same...

The TUC! The TUC! Has been a busy little bee, Working for resolutions hard By votes upon a Union card Believing wages should be free Of any controls stAtutory, But having to...

The kidnappers of Calabria Patricia Clough The crime was so cruel that many people, in this fundamentally humane country, want the death penalty returned, retroactively. A...

Disintegration in Boston Al Capp With 600 National Guardsmen drafted into the City, Boston this week prepares for violence on the first anniversary of compulsory school...

Having had warning of the Sotheby's silverdealers' walk-out shock — they object to the new 10 per cent buyers' premium — I went to see it for myself. By the time I got there the...

There is nothing which lies more within the province of a Spectator than Publick Shows; and as among these there are none which can pretend to vie with those Entertainments that...

Waspe The disappearance of John Osborne's new play, Watch It Come Down, from this year's National Theatre schedules (it was announced last November) should not be taken to mean...

Following my sorry story last week of David A. Jasen, author of the "authorised" biography of the late P. G. Wodehouse, I hear news of another disillusioned gentleman of the...

Dying of the malady of accelerating scientism tackling problems of epistemology". Leavis's and industrialism, we need to recognise that human beings are spiritual beings, and...

James Cameron Diary of a Chilean Concentration Camp Hernan Valdes (Gollancz £4.00) The story is dismally familiar: the tale of our times. The location varies, the uniforms...

Patrick Campbell Amazing Grace E. S. Turner (Michael Joseph E5.95) Once did I see a great duke before me, dukeing it up, and it was a sight I shall never forget. The second...

Joyce Grenfell Nancy Mitford: A Memoir Harold Acton (Hamish Hamilton £5.25) In the memoir of his friend, Harold Acton writes that occasionally with Nancy Mitford "one was...

Richard Shone Virginia Woolf and her World John Lehmann (Thames and Hudson £3.50) In his autobiography, John Lehmann gave an intimate account of his relations with Virginia...

Peter Jenkins The European Revenge Robert Heller and Norris Willett (Barrie and Jenkins £4.95) It was in 1967 that Jean-Jacques Servan: Schreiber popularised in a best-seller,...

William Sargant Astride the Two Cultures, Arthur Koestler at Seventy edited by Harold Harris (Hutchinson 0.50) Most of the reviews of this book are likely to be written by...

The end of the line Richard Luckett Hearing Secret Harmonies Anthony Powell (Heinemann £3.10) The run that began in December 1921 when Kenneth Widmerpool — clad in "a sweater...

Peter Ackroyd Guerillas V. S. Naipaul (Andre Deutsch £3.25) Mr Naipaul's new novel opens with the view of a city, the centre of an 'emerging' Caribbean island; it straddles...

in anger Benny Green There is an acid test for judging collected cinema or theatre reviews, and that is to sample those accounts of films and plays you never saw, and see...

The voice of the teacher Paul Griffin From a school staff room, all the Black Paper ritual seems a distant echo in an ebony tower. Above the hum of controversy — heads crying...

Our Hartley Robert Ashley I have, in one guise or another, had my differences with Lord Shawcross before now. But this week I wish to express my complete agreement with him....

Trained incapacity Bernard Dixon Science is supposed to rest on scrupulously careful observation, on the rigorous scrutiny of material as it really is and events as they...

Bail lain Scarlet Bail is one of those extraordinary subjects about which a very small proportion of the population and a scarcely larger proportion of the magistracy know...

Search out the truth Martin Sullivan The sin against the Holy Ghost, Which Christ said he was unforgivable, has puzzled many good people because the Authorised Version refers...

Disused railway lines Denis Wood Of recent years I have often found myself at Hampstead Norreys near Newbury, with a Labrador and a Great Dane to exercise. By far the best...

A humble package Kenneth Robinson Rollerball. Director: Norman Jewison. Stars: James Caan, Maud Adams, John Beck, Moses Gunn, Ralph Richardson 'AA" Odeon, Leicester Square...

Past imperfect Kenneth Ruffen Teeth 'n' Smiles by David Hare, with music by Nick Bicat, lyrics by Tony Mal (Royal Court) The piece is set in the year 1969. While it is...

Mirror, mirror... Rodney Mums How enjoyable can good satire afford to be? It is no good preaching to the converted in dingy cellars: satire must deliver a frontal attack on...

Master builder John McEvien The Arts Council is to be commended on presenting three outstanding architectural exhibitions in the last three years: the Inigo Jones...

Lucerne Festival John Bridcut That London is the musical capital of the world is now such a cliché that it is refreshing to find a pocket-sized city like Lucerne throbbing...

Nicholas Davenport Attendance at a dull international monetary conference, which I have always carefully avoided, can often be enlivened by the sound of hollow laughter coming...

There is an ironic justice in Sir-John Hunt, the powerful eminence grise of Whitehall and secretary to the Cabinet, being made to look foolish over the Crossman Diaries. He has...

The £8,500 cut-off Bernard Hollowood Homer was clearly fed up with our prolonged analysis of the failure of the England batsmen's technique against Lillee, Thomson and Walker...