Scenes from rural life. T he print unions called a halt to their war on Rupert Murdoch and his new printing plant at Wapping. The prospect of sequestration and substantial...

ATONING FOR GUILDFORD M Ps will now have had time to study the Home Office memorandum placed in the House of Commons library in ampli- fication of the Home Secretary's decision...

IT IS regrettable that Mr Michael Jopling should have so bungled his announcement of the Government's reforms for the coun- tryside, precipitating a largely unnecces- sary row...

The Labour Party's new social contract with the 'loony' Left ANDREW GIMSON The longer the Tories hold office, the less useful the record of the last Labour government becomes...

STAN GEBLER DAVIES Kinsale, Co. Cork here are to be two excellent parties in London next week, which I should attend but for the pressure of business. The first is the farewell...

Quis castrabit ipsos castratos? AU BERON WAUGH We cannot now, if ever we could, rely on the standards and integrity of good, sound chaps in Parliament and the judiciary. We...

Christopher Booker traces the development of a feeling that Britain is in decline, and finds reasons for seeing spots of light in the gloom IS BRITAIN in decline? It is a...

poem of not more than 16 lines about drink and/or drinking, is David Heaton: I will go without risotto For a Lotto, or a Giotto -- Even if the fresco's rather faint; And I'll...

THE DECLINE OF BRITAIN Successful Britons now see an end to decline. Michael Trend reports IF ONE had asked the questions that were put to our respondents about the state and...

STUDENTS ARE TWICE AS LIKELY TO ENJOY THE SPECTATOR AT LESS THAN HALF-PRICE More stimulating than any lecture, funnier than the set books, The Spectator should be required...

The Spectator Poll is designed to elicit the opinions, not of the general public, but of those holding senior positions in Britain, those who take important deci- sions and...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on the spread of Aids among priests in the United States Washington ARCHBISHOP Lanfranc warned against monks sharing towels, fearing that it was but a...

Andrew Mitchell sees hope for Austin Rover with the support of the Japanese THE Seat motor car, a collaborative ven- ture between the Germans, Italians and Spanish, has been...

A CURIOUS case at Cardiff has en- abled Mr Justice Stephen to deliver an important judgment. A Mr Batchelor became very popular in Cardiff, and three years after he died, a...

A. L. Rowse surveys the history of suitable and awkward Oxford officers THE Chancellorship of Oxford University, though highly decorative, is no mere ornamental office, though...

A profile of Henry Chadwick, once Dean of Christ Church, now to be Master of Peterhouse HENRY Chadwick has never appeared to be subject to that whirligig of fate which makes...

The press: Paul Johnson repudiates the new theory that a journalist is above the law IF I were asked to categorise Britain today, I think I would term it the Superstitious...

industry TIM CONGDON T he City has not had a good press in recent months. It often seems to be re- garded as an ugly wart, festering with organised and successful greed, on...

How to indulge in the unBritish activity of investing in cocoa or gold JANE ROBINS BRITISH investors have never been parti- cularly enthusiastic about trading in com-...

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

The changes that poverty will bring to the City ANTHONY HARRIS R emember the Big Bang? The atten- tion of City commentators since this sup- posedly transforming event has been...

A REFUGEE from the Upper Class Twit of the Year Show — yes, the City still employs them — strolled into Lloyds Bank, Bishopsgate, last week with a large bundle of applications...

How a dockful of takeover bankers could get in on the Act CHRISTOPHER FILDES I am haunted by a City vision: the dock at the Mansion House court, crammed to bursting with...

I AM sorry to see Nigel Lawson slipping back into the Treasury's bad old ways. For years, the Budget had been allowed to creep earlier and earlier in the calendar, as officials'...

EVEN shareholders have their uses. You would not think it, though, to listen to Friends Provident, the life-assurer. Friends Provident is a mutual society — that is, it is owned...

Budgeting in a season of euphoria JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE P urdah has come early in 1987. This is the season when the Treasury keeps a day-book in which visits to the loo by senior...

Sir: Mr Neil Kinnock seems addicted to synonyms, giving the word a wide defini- tion in the manner of crossword setters. When he suggests that Mr Alasdair Milne was 'pressured,...

Sir: In answer to Mr Kavanagh's rhetorical question, `Does anyone . . . read the poems printed in this magazine?, (Life and letters, 24 January) my reply is, yes, I do, and I...

Sir: Frank Johnson's admirable article on the first night at Covent Garden of Verdi's Otello (Domingo — free for some', 24 January) brought back to my mind Robert Browning's...

Shellingford School Sir: At this moment, it is to be hoped, the Secretary of State for Education is wonder- ing whether to overrule an Oxfordshire county council decision to...

Sir: As the connoisseur in question, I can assure David Fishlock (Letters, 7 Febru- ary) that I did not confuse the Flowers report with that of Roger Parker. At the 1977...

The most likely successor Edward Hamilton MENZIES AND CHURCHILL AT WAR by David Day W inston Churchill used to joke that when it came to political events one needed to wait...

Alastair Forbes THE BONUS OF LAUGHTER by Alan Pryce-Jones Hamish Hamilton, f12.95 I n a single week of my last stay in New York I chanced twice to have the pleasure of...

Heard from the near-dark this uncold morning, A single trill — `Godthingsarelookingup!' Just that, and then silence, as though the bird hunched In fluffed feathers again,...

Anita Brookner THE SELKIRK STRIP by Ferdinand Mount Hamish Hamilton, £9.95 T he Selkirk Strip is a piece of unman- ageable territory 'between the jungle and the mountains'....

In her black shawl she moves over the field of snow With a slow proud strut, like a burgher Or a fat crow. The raw sun has oozed on to the lint of cloud, A pretty smear of...

Charles Moore CHOOSE FREEDOM: THE FUTURE FOR DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM by Roy Hattersley Michael Joseph, £12.95 T he first half of Mr Hattersley's book attacks the 'New Right'....

Francis King THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY by Fay Weldon Hutchinson, £8.95 T he first thing that strikes one on starting this novel is the force of the personality of a narrator...

FICTION Carpenter's Gothic by William Gaddis, Picador, £3.95 A Fanatic Heart by Edna O'Brien, Pen- guin, £4.95 Police at the Funeral and Sweet Danger by Margery Allingham....

Mervyn Peake Journey of dark discovery Tom Pocock N ow and then, unusual drawings by Mervyn Peake appear in sale-rooms, gal- leries and retrospective exhibitions, the most...

Grey on grey Rodney Milnes S tefanos Lazaridis's permanent set is an absolute knockout. Simply described, it consists of a sharply raked false stage, but raked laterally to...

John Moores (Walker Gallery, Liverpool, till 20 April), Confused state Alistair Hicks andy Nairne glories in the secondary• In his exhibition, book and television series,...

Boy Soldier (`15', Cannon, Tottenham Court Road) Welsh rarebit Peter Ackroyd A nd so back to Northern Ireland; surely no conflict in history has been advertised so...

Siegfried Sassoon (Apollo) Lillian (Fortune) One-person shows Christopher Edwards T his is a transfer from Hampstead of Peter Barkworth's enjoyable one-man touring show about...

Gushes and blushes Wendy Cope O ne of the week's silliest remarks came from Jonathan Ross on Did You See . . ? (BBC2). 'Whoever designed that set', he said, 'should be taken...

Chinese whispers Noel Malcolm y name's Nick Ross, please call me and let off steam.' Tuesday Call has gone, and Mr Ross has taken its place with a new-look, old-style...

Payne and pleasure Jeffrey Bernard and who has done nobody any harm whatsoever should be nicked by a police- man posing as a businessman is quite disgusting. But the police...

Stylish visitors Taki othing makes one feel as well as feeling normal after having been ill. Just as nothing makes one feel more ill than training after having been idle for a...

Bad form Alice Thomas Ellis I hate forms. I hate them with a simple pure and dedicated passion, religious in its intensity. I don't understand them for a start, which is...

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...

Come back, please Jaspistos n Competition No. 1458 you were asked for a sonnet expressing the same sort of sentiments about somebody else as Words- worth expressed in his...

Old Vic Raymond Keene V iktor Korchnoi, that great veteran (born 1931), is still turning in some truly marvellous results. In 1985 and again last year he hit some bad patches,...

THIS Saturday is Valentine's Day but poor old St Valentine has been struck off the roll whilst the Mafiosi are still massacring everybody or having huge trials in Palermo or...

You are invited to give an account of a Post-1920 sporting event, real or imagin- ary, written by a famous writer flourishing before that date. Maximum 150 words. Entries to...

circuit lights beginning in 1, 10, 17, 24, 28, 36 are DUCKS. Whiners: R. J. Dallison, Oxford (£20); Olga Lloyd, Burton upon Trent; J. R. Moon, London SE21.